Stephen McKeon, a Limerick-based entrepreneur, has created CourseCompass, a psychometric testing platform that is intended to help students make more informed decisions about their studies and to lower the rate at which they leave college without completing a qualification. While still a student at the University of Limerick, McKeon built the business around a straightforward premise: give learners the kind of data-driven insight that can reveal which subjects and career paths match their strengths before they commit to a full-time programme.
The report notes that McKeon first spotted a weakness in the higher-education system during his own schooling years, observing that a sizable proportion of students were exiting college early and that many entered their courses without a clear sense of what they hoped to achieve. At the same time, guidance counsellors were being asked to process an ever-growing number of CAO applications each admissions cycle, yet they lacked scalable tools to support each applicant effectively.
Addressing the College Drop-out Crisis
CourseCompass blends psychometric testing with a library of resources aimed at both students and the counsellors who advise them, with the goal of tackling the persistent problem of students leaving their studies prematurely. The platform’s core offering consists of a suite of tests that generate personalised recommendations for university courses, apprenticeship routes, and post-Leaving Certificate programmes. In addition, a Subject Interest Test is provided to guide younger pupils as they choose Leaving Certificate subjects, helping them align early choices with longer-term ambitions.
The founder describes several standout features that differentiate the service. One element is a set of accommodation guides that detail housing options for each university campus across Ireland, giving students practical information about where they might live while studying. Another is a series titled Career Investigations, which profiles more than sixty distinct occupations, supplies salary expectations, and indicates the likelihood that each role could be affected by automation. An AI-driven CV builder also forms part of the toolkit, allowing users to craft professional résumés with minimal effort.
It also provides anonymous eligibility guides for SUSI, HEAR and DARE schemes, plus a mock CAO tool that lets users simulate applications and see how test results map to possible courses.
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Guidance counsellors who adopt the platform can assign specific tests, share curated resources, and monitor student progress in real time through an intuitive dashboard. When a learner flags difficulty or expresses dissatisfaction with a result, the counsellor receives an alert and can intervene promptly, offering targeted support before a potential dropout becomes inevitable.
The pricing structure distinguishes between individual learners and institutional clients. Students receive free access to the basic resources and eligibility guides, while schools can purchase a package that falls under the book grant scheme, meaning that once a school signs up, the costs of tests, instructional material, and accommodation guides are already covered for its pupils.
McKeon’s Entrepreneurial Journey
Before launching CourseCompass, the entrepreneur’s path to business ownership began with modest ventures such as selling slime during primary school and producing his own training videos while working at a fast-food outlet. At the age of seventeen, he earned the Digital Guru Employee of the Year award while employed by McDonald’s Ireland, and a year later he was invited to deliver a keynote address at the company’s 50th-anniversary conference for the United Kingdom and Ireland in Glasgow, addressing more than 3,500 employees.
He explains that the experience of operating inside a large corporate environment shaped his desire to create something of his own. By focusing on grant funding, he secured a concrete result: a €5,000 award that accompanied his win of the University of Limerick Student Entrepreneur of the Year title in 2026. To date, the venture has not taken on external investment.
