For Universities & Partners
The student who never reaches their potential
costs more than you think. Not in crisis calls. Not in dropout paperwork. In the chronic, invisible gap between what students intend to do and what they actually do — week after week, year after year.
95%
Know what
to do
During our workshops, 95% of students execute a concrete action. They are capable. They are motivated.
20%
Still doing it one
week later
During our workshops, 95% of students execute a concrete action. They are capable. They are motivated.
€354K
Groepsmentor
spend at TiU
Annual spend on peer support groups that students don't attend. The budget exists. The format doesn't work.
€7.9M
Upper estimate, annual disengagement cost
The full institutional cost of student disengagement — dropout revenue, counselling, delayed graduation, staff burden.
The Student Reality
What the average
journey actually
looks like.
Universities measure outcomes. GPA, graduation rates, employment figures. What they don't see is the shape of the journey — the wellbeing curve, the accumulating strain, the silent execution gap that determines everything.
Entry
First Pressure
The Loop Starts
Chronic Stress
Crisis or Muddling Through
Post-Grad Carry-Over
Entry
Intervention Point
Structure Replaces Motivation
Peer Accountability Active
Graduation with Momentum
Post-Grad Carry-Over
The Cost to You
This isn't a student problem. It's your problem.
Student disengagement has a price tag. Not in abstract wellbeing scores — in lost tuition revenue, counselling spend, delayed graduation, staff burden, and a student satisfaction figure that affects your accreditation standing.
Dropout Revenue
Loss
€15–25K
Per student who drops out. Combines lost tuition, lost government funding allocation (rijksbijdrage: ~€6–8K/student/year), and the sunk costs of academic support, registration, and administration already invested.
Delayed Graduation Cost
~€8K
Per student who takes one extra year to graduate. Extends institutional support costs, delays the student's productive years, and — at scale — measurably distorts throughput metrics that determine accreditation scores.
Mental Health & Counselling Load
60–70%
Of students report needing more support than they currently receive. The demand is visible. The existing infrastructure — psychologists, counsellors, crisis services — is reactive and overloaded. Counsellors are expensive; prevention is not.
Support Programmes That Don't Work
€354K
Tilburg University's annual spend on groepsmentor peer support groups. Students don't attend. The format is misaligned with how students actually engage. The budget for peer support already exists — it's producing almost no behavioral impact.
Estimated annual cost of student disengagement
€2.2M — €7.9M
Per mid-to-large university. This includes dropout revenue loss, delayed graduation, counselling infrastructure, and under-utilised support programs. The cost is already occurring. The question is whether you're addressing the cause or only managing the symptoms.
The ProjectU Effect
Same students. Different trajectory.
ProjectU doesn't select high-performers and make them better. It takes the average, overwhelmed, stuck student — the one who ends up in a counsellor's office two years later — and gives them the system to move before the crisis arrives.
Reacts to pressure with avoidance
Reacts to pressure with avoidance
The loop doesn't disappear — but the student now sees it. Seeing it is the prerequisite for breaking it. This is the core week 2–3 shift in the programme.
Relies on motivation to execute
Operates from systems and habits
Motivation is episodic. Systems are structural. Week 4 replaces "wanting to" with a designed environment where action is easier than avoidance.
Feels alone in the struggle
Held accountable by a peer
Every participant is paired. Peer accountability is not a nice-to-have — it's the mechanism that makes behavior survive the return to everyday life.
Support services feel formal, clinical
Peer-built, embedded in student life
Students don't access formal support because it doesn't fit. ProjectU meets them where they are — peer-to-peer, normalising the struggle rather than pathologising it.
Intervention happens post-crisis
Prevention happens before the crash
Counsellors see students after two years of accumulated stress. ProjectU reaches them in Year 1–2 — before the pattern is entrenched, before the crisis costs start accumulating.
Drops out of programs after activation
16/16 completed all 5 sessions
University peer programs average 40–60% drop-off. Pilot 1 had zero. Because the format is right — small group, peer-led, built around action not information.
The ROI
What prevention costs versus what crisis costs.
Based on a cohort of 100 students. Conservative estimates. Sources: institutional data, Dutch higher education research, ProjectU pilot data. Universities spend millions on support that students don't use. The system is built for outcomes, not for the person trying to achieve them. ProjectU is built for the gap.
Without ProjectU — 100 Students
Students who drop out (est. 20–25%)
Revenue + funding loss per dropout
Students with delayed graduation (est. 30%)
Added institutional cost per delayed student
Counselling & mental health support load
Peer support programmes (low-attendance)
Estimated total cost per 100 students
With ProjectU — 100 Students
Cost of ProjectU per student (est. scale model)
Total programme cost per 100 students
Dropouts prevented (if 1 in 5 intervention rate)
Revenue saved from prevented dropouts
Counselling demand reduction (estimated)
Completion rate in ProjectU pilot
Estimated total cost per 100 students
Hear It From Them
16 students.
6 minutes. Unscripted.
I didn't expect to see myself so clearly in week one. By week five I was the same person — making completely different decisions."
Universities spend millions on support that students don't use. The system is built for outcomes, not for the person trying to achieve them. ProjectU is built for the gap.
Pilot participant
Pilot 1 — Spring 2026
What one round did.
Every Number Has a Name
The people
behind the data.
16
Participants | 100% Completed
Antoni Zborowski
Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence
+78%
Clarity
5/5
Sessions
Teo Arwacher
Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
+88%
Control
5/5
Sessions
Savannah Noirfalise
Global Law
+71%
Control
5/5
Sessions
Boris Voronko
Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
+88%
Clarity
5/5
Sessions
Jacobo Valencia
Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation
+71%
Self-awareness
5/5
Sessions
(Y)our mission
The mission is to
Make self-leadership & mental health as normal & teachable as Mathematics or Sports. Everywhere.
Connection
Something shifts when you say the thing out loud and someone else says "me too." That's what we build.
Playground
With a little bit of fun, everything looks much better. We create a space to experiment with your own life and actually enjoy it.
Our Impact in Numbers
Workshops organized
Students reached
Partnerships
What Can I Expect?
What is holding me back?
Something's getting in the way. You feel it but can't name it. Here you will.
What drains me?
Not everything deserves your energy. Here you figure out what's actually killing it and stop pretending it isn't.
What gives me energy?
You already know what gives you energy. Here you stop ignoring it and actually build around it.
What makes me feel alive?
Stop following a path someone else drew. Here you figure out what actually excites you, and start from there.
Events
Upcoming
Make a Choice
- Free
- 11.09 4:00 pm
- Open for everyone
F*ck it – Time Capsule
- Free
- 02.09 3:30 pm
- Community only
Previous
Navigating The Unknown
- 30/03 16:30
- Open for everyone
- Free
Too Smart To Start — A Hands-On Action Workshop
- 27/02 15:30
- Open for everyone
- Free
F*CK LIMITS
- 30/01 16:45
- Open for everyone
- Free
Memories
F*ck It #1 – Make It Happen
2.5 hours. Something shifted.
In the room, people:
- Got honest about what’s actually been holding them back
- Built a personal Clarity Map: a real picture of what is going on their lives
- Found the one step they’d been avoiding and took it before leaving
- Left with a concrete next move and people to keep them accountable
Nobody walked out the same way they walked in.
F*ck It #2 – Build Your Momentum
Starting is one thing. Keeping going is another.
32 people came. We put a F*ck Up Wall up: a place to pin your failures, publicly. What happened surprised even us. People didn’t feel shame. They felt relief.
In the room:
- Failures went public and stopped being heavy
- We dug into the real reason behind what you actually want
- Built a system that doesn’t collapse the moment life gets messy
- Left with a structure and someone to hold you to it
Nobody walked out pretending they had it together. That was the point.
F*ck it #3
GTG — ONLINE & OFFLINE
One hour. Two rooms. Same mission.
We handed the mic to students: what are the real problems you’re dealing with? Groups brainstormed, found patterns, designed solutions, and pitched them back to the room.
We are all noo experts. Just students figuring it out together.
F*CK LIMITS
Your brain has decided what you’re capable of. It’s wrong.
24 people picked up a pen with their non-dominant hand. Couldn’t write properly. Felt stupid. That was the point. That feeling of failure? That’s a belief, not a fact.
In the room:
- We broke the illusion of “I can’t” in real time
- Learned how the brain builds limits and how to rewire them
- Rewrote the beliefs that had been running on autopilot
- Left with a framework to catch yourself next time the limit shows up
The pen exercise lasted 2 minutes. For some people, the shift lasted much longer.
Too Smart To Start — A Hands-On Action Workshop
You know exactly what to do. You’re just not doing it.
42 people… our biggest workshop. Two guest speakers who’d been where the room was. We ran a “find your twin” exercise; groups of people who avoid things for the exact same reason. Turns out you’re not as unique in your excuses as you thought.
In the room:
- Broke the illusion that more preparation leads to better results
- Found the people avoiding the same things you are
- Executed something on the spot. No more waiting for the right moment
- Built a personal motto to carry the mindset out the door
Most people left feeling unstoppable. The real test came the next day. That’s why the community exists.
Navigating The Unknown
No slides. No speakers. Just life.
We partnered with Hobby and spent the session with people navigating the world differently: blind, in a wheelchair, living with disabilities.
Something shifts when you hear someone talk about their hardest thing and realise you’ve been avoiding yours.
In the room:
- Saw resilience up close, not as a concept but as a person
- Asked the questions you don’t normally ask
- Came face to face with your own avoidance through someone else’s courage
- Left with a different relationship to uncertainty
The smallest workshop. The one people talked about longest.
Make It Happen – Builder Edition.
This one wasn’t a workshop. It was a build session.
20 students received one brief: design a 6-week self-leadership programme from scratch. Groups dreamed, argued, built, and pitched to each other.
In the room:
Started with a dreaming exercise to get out of your own head
Received the real problem ProjectU is trying to solve
Designed your own version of the solution
Pitched it back and got pushed on it
What came out of that session shaped what the pilot became. The students didn’t just attend something. They built it.
Tilburg Honors Program Graduation Ceremony
The end of something. The start of something else.
We had one window, in the middle of a graduation, to ask the question nobody else was asking. Not “what did you achieve?” but “who did you become?”
In the room:
Reflected on what you brought into university and what you built here
Named the strengths you didn’t have when you started
Chose one thing to actually do with everything you’ve learned
Said it out loud to someone next to you
Not everyone went deep. Some did. That’s always how it goes in a room with a lot of people.
The ones who did left with something to carry forward.
Fun Before Exams
Canvas. Pizza. Speed dates. No agenda.
Right before exam season hit, we got together with 180 Degrees and Enactus and did something simple: painted our dreams.
Just people getting to know each other, sharing what they actually want, and having a good time before the pressure arrived.
Because sometimes the most important thing you can do before exams is remember you’re a person first.
WHERE YOU FIND YOUR PEOPLE AND FIGURE IT OUT TOGETHER
Join The Community
Your People
EVENTS EVERY WEEK
Workshops, community events, runs, dinners. Always something happening. Always a reason to show up.
Your Membership
A card that's actually yours. Partner discounts, upcoming events, and everything ProjectU does. In one place.
Access to the program
The most engaged members get personally invited into the programme. You earn it by showing up.
Meet The Team
Open Positions
University & Academic Growth
- 8-10 hours / week
- Tilburg
Marketing & Content
- 5-7 hours / week
- Tilburg
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