Columbia Student Launches .edu-Verified Campus Marketplace for Student Housing and Secondhand Goods

GradPazz brings .edu verification and structured listings to student housing, roommate matching, and secondhand transactions while supporting campus reuse.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- GradPazz, a peer-to-peer campus marketplace requiring .edu email verification, has launched to help students navigate housing searches, secondhand goods transactions, and roommate matching with greater trust and structure.

The platform was founded by Zihan Ye, a Columbia University student in Enterprise Risk Management. Drawing on his academic focus on risk and trust, as well as his own experience relocating across cities and countries as an international student, Ye created GradPazz to address recurring problems students face when relying on general-purpose platforms, informal group chats, and unverified listings.

GradPazz was also created in response to another common challenge in student life: the waste created during graduation, summer move-out, and new student arrival periods. Each year, students often discard furniture, appliances, and household items simply because there is no efficient campus-specific system for passing them on to incoming students.

“Every semester, students have to move, sell furniture, find housing, and look for roommates, but the tools they rely on were not built specifically for campus communities,” said Ye, founder of GradPazz. “Craigslist, Facebook Groups, and group chats can be useful, but they often lack identity verification and structured information tailored to campus communities. GradPazz was built to help students connect with more confidence and navigate these transitions in a safer and more organized way.”

Verified Identity as a Foundation for Trust

GradPazz requires users to register with a valid .edu email address, creating a university-email-verified trust layer for peer-to-peer transactions. Listings are structured by category — sublets, roommate searches, and secondhand goods — helping students find relevant information more efficiently while reducing the uncertainty that often comes with informal online transactions.

The platform is currently live at gradpass.site and available on iOS through the Apple App Store and on Android through Google Play, with an initial user base at Columbia University and early outreach planned for additional university communities.

Supporting Reuse and Sustainable Campus Living

Beyond helping students find housing and connect with peers, GradPazz is designed to support a more sustainable campus move-out cycle. By making it easier for students to sell, give away, or transfer furniture and household goods within verified university communities, the platform encourages reuse and helps reduce unnecessary waste.

For graduating students, GradPazz provides a structured place to list items before moving out. For incoming students, it creates an easier way to find affordable secondhand essentials from other students in the same campus ecosystem. This reuse-based model supports both affordability and sustainability while keeping transactions local to the university community.

A Gap in the Market

Public consumer fraud data from the Federal Trade Commission has shown that younger adults report losing money to fraud at relatively high rates. College students, who frequently relocate, transact peer-to-peer, and rely on informal social networks, often navigate this environment with few purpose-built tools. Existing options such as general classifieds, official housing boards, and group chats were not designed to address the trust, structure, and verification challenges specific to campus communities.

GradPazz was built to fill that gap: a dedicated campus marketplace where users register through a verified .edu email address, listings follow a consistent structure, and students can more easily connect around housing, roommate needs, and secondhand goods within their university communities.

About GradPazz

GradPazz is a .edu-verified peer-to-peer campus marketplace for student housing, roommate matching, and secondhand goods. The platform is designed to make student transactions safer, more organized, and more community-based while supporting reuse and more sustainable campus move-out practices. GradPazz is headquartered in New York, NY.

Media Contact:
Zihan Ye
Founder, GradPazz
zye@gradpazz.com
gradpass.site

Zihan Ye
Gradpazz
zye@gradpazz.com
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