Patient-care hours, paid — and a real stake in the co-op.
Companion care for older neighbors. Flexible around your classes.
co-op.care pays students to spend time with older adults so they can keep living at home. You get real patient-care experience for your health-professional applications, W-2 pay, and a worker-member stake in the cooperative — not a volunteer gig, not a 1099. No certification needed; we train you. And for some founding roles, a homeshare option can cover rent.
Apply to the first membersFirst members · Boulder & the Front Range · no experience required — we train you.
Boulder is full of pre-health students. Older neighbors need company to stay home. We pay you to be the bridge.
Health-professional programs want real hands-on hours with patients — and they're hard to get. Meanwhile the fastest-growing care setting is someone's own home, and the work that keeps people there is companionship. co-op.care turns that match into a paid, owned role.
A campus job that compounds into your career.
Everything a health-track student needs from a job — minus the parts that waste your time.
Patient-care hours that count
Hands-on time supporting older adults in their homes. We log your hours and give you a record to submit with your application. (Confirm with your program that companion-care hours qualify.)
Why hours matterPaid like an owner — not gig labor
Real W-2 employment (we handle payroll, taxes, and workers' comp), wages set to Colorado law, plus a worker-member stake as the co-op formalizes its member equity. Not a 1099. Not volunteering.
How caregivers are paidFlexible around your classes
Roughly 8–12 hours a week, and you choose the visits that fit your schedule. No rigid shifts, no overnights, no being on call.
How it worksA homeshare option (founding perk)
Some founding roles include a homeshare match — a reduced or free room with a host household in exchange for agreed care hours. Matched case by case; the honest terms are spelled out below.
Read the honest termsTrained, and never on your own
No certification needed — we train you before your first visit. Every visit is backed by a care coordinator and Sage, our always-on assistant, with physician oversight on the clinical side.
Meet SageA reference + real systems exposure
Do the work well and earn a reference based on what the care team actually observed. Along the way you'll see care plans, CMS billing, and AI-assisted documentation from the inside — a differentiator on any application.
Inside the co-opA campus gig ends at graduation. A stake doesn't.
Every student care platform offers the same deal: paid hours now, and the day you graduate, you age out. co-op.care is built the other way around. The work is the on-ramp to owning the thing you help build — you start as a paid companion and can keep climbing long after you've left campus. A platform rents your time and keeps the upside; a cooperative hands the upside to the people who do the work.
Companion visit
Paid W-2 from your first visit, patient-care hours logged, trained and never on your own.
Worker-member
Put in the time and you're not "staff" — you're a member of the cooperative, with a say in it and a share of it.
Patronage equity
As member equity formalizes, your contribution builds patronage equity — co-op capital credits tied to the work you did, not a one-time bonus. A stake that is yours.
A voice in how it runs
Members govern the co-op. The people who give the care help decide how it works — including the students who helped start it.
Why this matters for you
Most students take a care job for the hours and the experience. Here you get those and a foothold in the care economy that doesn't vanish at graduation.
If you want meaningful, paid, patient-facing work — this is for you.
Pre-med, pre-PA, pre-PT/OT, nursing, pharmacy, gerontology, social work, public health, psychology — or anyone who wants real work near campus that means something.
You'll learn more about care in a year of this than in a semester of lecture.
Companionship — not a nursing shift.
A visit is conversation over coffee, a walk, a meal, a ride to an appointment, a hand with things around the house — the ordinary company that lets someone stay in the home they love. It is non-medical companion care: no medications, no medical procedures, no nursing tasks. When something clinical comes up, you flag it and the care team takes it from there.
The point
This is the human side of healthcare, done well — the part no simulation lab replicates, and the part admissions committees and future patients can tell you actually did.
- This is a first members. We're building it in Boulder and the Front Range first and want members. It is early — expect to help shape the role, not step into a finished program.
- The work is non-medical companion care — not nursing or clinical work — with physician oversight on the clinical side and a care coordinator on every visit.
- Pay is real W-2. An employer-of-record handles payroll, taxes, workers' comp, and your background check. Wages are set to Colorado law; the co-op's aim is to pay caregivers like owners as it grows.
- Patient-care hours: we document them and give you a record — but you should confirm with your specific program that companion-care hours count toward its requirement.
- The homeshare option is matched individually. A reduced or free room may be treated as taxable in-kind compensation, and it's always subject to a written homeshare agreement and background check. It's a perk for some roles, not a guarantee for all.
- Worker-member equity is patronage equity under the co-op's bylaws as member equity is formalized — it is not a cash bonus and not a security you trade.
From application to first visit in a few honest steps.
Apply
Two minutes — name, email, what you're studying. No resume, no cover letter.
Quick call + background check
A short conversation to see if it's a fit, then we run the background check (we cover it).
Training
You're prepared before you ever knock on a door — what companion care is, what to flag, who to call.
Get matched
Visits that fit your class schedule — and, if it's a fit for both sides, a homeshare match.
Become a worker-member
Paid, holding a stake in the co-op, hours documented for your application as you go.
Join the first members.
Tell us a little about yourself. It takes two minutes — no resume, no cover letter. We'll reach out to talk about what fits your schedule, your program, and whether a homeshare match makes sense.
Apartment List — Boulder rent (rent figure). PAEA / CASPA (patient-care-experience expectations for PA applicants). AAMC — Get Experience (clinical/patient experience for medical school). U.S. Census (2030 / aging). The 8–15% vs 40–50% take is co-op.care's own model. First members — pay, hours, equity, and any homeshare arrangement are confirmed individually and subject to agreement, Colorado law, and your program's requirements.