UpperClass bets on peer trust to reshape international student recruitment

When Dutch entrepreneur Mark Balneger first arrived in Korea as an exchange student in 2011, he didn't plan on building a career here — much less raising a family.

But Korea kept drawing him back.

After returning for summer school in 2013 and a working holiday in 2015, Balneger launched his own business in Seoul in 2016 through the Seoul Global Startup Center. He later worked in the Korean entertainment industry before leaving the country to complete his degree and care for his father, who had cancer.

He returned in 2020. Today, he lives in Busan with his Korean wife and their two children.

Now, his latest venture is bringing together two parts of his experience: his life as a foreign national in Korea and his work in technology and digital marketing.

Balneger co-founded UpperClass with Rodel Sta. Ana, an entrepreneur who previously held an early leadership role at ApplyBoard, one of the world's leading international student recruitment platforms. Drawing on their combined experience, the pair believes universities already possess their most valuable recruitment asset: their own students and alumni.

UpperClass recently advanced to Phase 2 of the 2026 K-Startup Grand Challenge (KSGC), Korea's flagship government accelerator operated by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. The startup is one of 40 teams selected from nearly 2,000 global applicants, following an initial cut to 80 in Phase 1.

For UpperClass, the opportunity comes at a critical moment for Korea’s higher education sector.

As the domestic university-age population continues to decline, regional universities outside the capital area face growing enrollment pressures. While institutions are turning to international recruitment for enrollment and to revitalize local economies, traditional marketing budgets are yielding diminishing returns.

"The gap in higher education marketing isn't a lack of information. It's that universities aren't fully leveraging the trust students have in one another," Balneger said. "Gen Z prospective students can smell an ad coming from a mile away. Instead of trusting an institutional ad, they search social media for peers from their home countries to ask real questions about campus culture, local communities and daily life."

UpperClass addresses that disconnect by helping universities organize current students and alums into a structured creator network. The platform provides universities with a centralized portal to launch campaign briefs, establish brand guidelines, track recruitment leads and reward student creators through points redeemable for cash, gift cards or tuition discounts.

While university ambassador programs exist, they are notoriously difficult to scale manually. UpperClass digitizes and streamlines that administrative burden into a single system.

Currently going through a pilot test in Canada and expanding into Europe and Southeast Asia, UpperClass sees its selection for KSGC as a strategic entry point into Korea's higher education system — especially in regional hubs like Busan.

The company’s early-stage entry aligns directly with KSGC's core evaluation criteria. Rather than demanding years of commercial revenue on Day 1, the program backs founders tackling high-friction market problems with believable execution strategies.

"What separates successful applicants is not necessarily how complete their product is, but whether they have identified a genuine problem, understand the Korean market and can present a credible plan," said Paul Kwon, former program manager of KSGC. "At the end of the day, if the consumer doesn't want it, it doesn't matter."

Kwon said roughly 30 percent of participating startups remain in Korea after the program — a figure he considers significant given that most startups don’t survive the industry's so-called "Death Valley," the high-risk period between an initial idea and a sustainable business. "At the end of the day, if the consumer doesn't want it, it doesn't matter," he said.

Whether UpperClass advances to KSGC's next phase will say something about how Korean institutions are willing to bet on outsiders solving problems from the inside. For Balneger, the answer either way doesn't change the plan. He said it's his personal mission to make integration easier for international students and shift the narrative away from a Seoul-centered ecosystem.

"I want to let people know that you shouldn't just think all the opportunities are in Seoul," Balneger said. "I live in Korea, my future is in Korea and my kids are Korean. I want to build solutions that make Korea a better place for them."

Alice Hong is a freelance writer and comedian based in Seoul. Follow @hippohong on Instagram.