Youth Incorporated Magazine

Tinder has announced a new feature to its app called Tinder U, meant for college students only. The app will be filtered for the college audience, and to log in, students will have to add ‘.edu’ to their existing e-mail account while on campus, as its functionality is location-based.

The feature cuts off all other users who don’t go to college in that particular area. So, your options will be limited to the students at your university or any other 4-year accredited university nearby. However, if you do want to expand your horizons, you can switch to the original Tinder app and look at profiles of non-university going users. For example, a student studying at NYU can browse through profiles of students at Columbia University, and vice versa, but you will not be able to see profiles of students at Brown University or The University of Rhode Island.

As per a mock-up of the new feature, they will be a filter representing each user’s college. If the student goes to NYU, there will be a purple banner with the letters ‘NYU’. If the student goes to Columbia University, there will be a blue banner with the letters ‘CU’. This makes it easier to decipher if your match is at your university or a nearby one.

“Need a study buddy? Not a problem. Coffee date on the quad? We’ve got you covered. Freshman year and you don’t know a soul? This is your ticket to the coolest crowd on campus,” said the app in a statement. Although, we imagine that the ‘study buddy’ claim might have raised a few eyebrows! Currently, the feature will be rolled out only on iOS.

However, the feature raises the question of whether students really need a dating app when college students are essentially surrounded with potential dates. In an article by Refinery29, Lisa Wade, a professor of sociology says that just because students don’t need dating apps, doesn’t mean they don’t want them.

“I have a theory about Tinder on college campuses because I think it is being used more and more. I think one way it’s being used is as a kind of flirtation device,” Wade says. According to her theory, if a student swipes right on another student, chances are high that they will bump into each other at social gatherings or even in the class. Striking up a conversation becomes easier because you have already shown your interest in them.

Will Tinder’s Tinder U be a one-of-its-kind revolution on the university circuit? Will it be a new era of ‘the college life’? Only time will tell.