‘ClassyLU’ thrives

Liberty student creates website for classmates

With the rising cost of tuition, college students now have to pay more money for an education than ever before, but one Liberty University student found a way to make that burden a little easier for his peers.

Liberty junior Daniel Bolton came up with an idea to organize buying, selling and much more in a convenient and safe environment. He calls it ClassyLU.com.

Bolton had an idea, and with most ideas, it started with a problem that needed solving.

“Sophomore year, I had some things to sell, mostly textbooks, but I didn’t want to post it on Craigslist. This was right during the time of the Craigslist killer, and I didn’t want to use eBay because that costs money, and Flameslist didn’t have that many users,” Bolton said.

In response to this problem, Bolton created the Liberty Book Exchange, a group on Facebook that allows Liberty students to find buyers for the books that they want to sell. The group exploded, cultivating almost 700 members in just a few short days.

The explosion of membership confirmed for Bolton that he was heading in the right direction, and Jan. 3, 2013, ClassyLU went online. Since then, it has seen almost 5,000 page views, spanning 30 states and 13 countries.

ClassyLU offers many different options for students to buy, sell and post practically anything, and allows them to come together to meet their school needs in a friendly and safe environment.

“You can post prayer requests, post rides to and from different locations, textbooks, post or apply for a job, sell tickets for events, buy or sell Liberty gear, search for roommates and even offer tutoring services,” Bolton said. “Everything is similar to Craigslist, but I wanted to make it better looking and better functioning.”

ClassyLU also caters to off-campus students, and all posting is free. There is an option called “featured listing,” where for $2, students can have their listings posted on a featured scroll bar on the homepage for 30 days, making it the first thing people see when they come to the site.

Bolton said that for those wary of finding a good roommate, ClassyLU offers a detailed search that is much more precise then Liberty’s own roommate search, which makes it easy to find the roommate you are looking for.

For more information, visit ClassyLU at ClassyLU.com or contact Daniel Bolton at djbolton@liberty.edu.

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