Keystone Academic Solutions Acquires US College Athletics Placement Firm

New Deal Expands Access to International Student Athletes for US Higher Education Institutions

Oslo, Norway –  20 April 2021 

Keystone Academic Solutions (“Keystone”) has acquired Pursue AS, widely known as College Scholarships USA (“CSUSA”), a placement firm for international student-athletes seeking academic opportunities at universities in the United States.    

The acquisition of CSUSA expands Keystone's offering to international students, enhancing the company's ability to achieve its mission, which is to help students make one of the most important decision of their lifetimes — namely, which higher education institution to attend. As a result of the deal, Keystone will be able to provide enhanced services for potential students interested in combining education with sports. At the same time, the acquisition of CSUSA will enable Keystone to help universities reach an expanded audience of international students. 

Visited by over 68 million unique prospective students each year, Keystone’s student resource portfolio currently includes more than 420 websites globally. The websites cover 33 languages and eight higher education verticals, including Masters, Bachelors, PhD, Online, Healthcare, MBA, Law and Academic courses.

“We are pleased to welcome CSUSA into the Keystone family. By joining forces, we will be able to strengthen and scale our offerings to a US undergraduate market that currently hosts over 650 000 student-athletes, many of whom come from abroad,” said Erik Harrell, CEO of Keystone. 

“This will create exciting new opportunities for students and universities, diversify cohorts, strengthen athletics programs, and increase the number of potential pathways to higher education in the USA for international students,” said Harrell. 

CSUSA was founded in 2007 by Stewart Stanbra and Kim Moe Krohn while they were both students on soccer scholarships at the University of South Carolina Upstate. After their experience abroad, Stanbra and Moe Krohn wanted to help provide the same great opportunity for other international student-athletes wanting to study in the US.  

Since then, they have guided over 2300 student-athletes from 34 different countries in seeking their ideal educational pathway. The experienced team have helped place students participating in a variety of sports in colleges across 48 states in the US. 

Co-founder Stewart Stanbra said: “There is an abundance of opportunities to study in the US and teaming up with Keystone will enable to us to improve our services to our current students and ultimately help more international students pursue their academic and athletic ambitions.”  

“This is an incredible strategic fit for us. We love the vision Keystone has for international student recruitment and we’re thrilled to get to work with their experienced team right away,” added co-founder Kim Moe Krohn. 

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All Media Enquiries to: 

Ashlee-Maree Courtney-Eman 

Email: ashlee@keystoneacademic.com 

Telephone: +47 475 13 692 

About Keystone Academic Solutions 

Keystone is trusted by more than 68 million unique prospective students every year to help them make one of the most important decisions of their lifetimes, namely, which higher ed program to attend. In turn, Keystone helps over 5000 higher ed institutions reach and communicate with prospective students in more than 190 countries via its more than 420 websites covering 33 languages and eight core higher education verticals - Masters, Bachelors, PhD, Online, Healthcare, MBA, Law and Academic courses.

Headquartered in Oslo, Norway and backed by Viking Venture, a leading Nordic venture firm, Keystone has an international staff of more than 160 employees. 

About College Scholarships USA

College Scholarships USA (CSUSA) provides talented international students that play sports the opportunity to study at American universities and compete in college sports while getting a scholarship. Since 2007, CSUSA staff have assisted 2300+ student-athletes, in a variety of sports from all over the world, to pursue their ambition of competing in sports in combination with higher education. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, CSUSA also has offices in Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom.