Central PayPath

Inspiration

No one is more acquainted with the stresses of student debt and the anxiety that comes with financial planning than college students. We understand this stress because we have experienced it. Financial anxiety is a problem facing many college students.

When considering student debt, we focused on our own experiences with financial planning for higher education. We discussed our personal experiences with available financial tools. Two of our members created their own plan manually, as they could not find any other long term planning service. The university financial aid website allowed for some financial planning, but only to a limited degree. This led our focus to a tool that could expand upon the simple finance page the website currently utilizes.

What it does

Our proposed website tool aims to make financial planning more accessible and easier for CMU students. We want students to be able to plan their future and consider a number of factors in doing so. This tool allows students to modify a variety of common finance factors (commuting, book prices, housing costs, meal plan type, and tuition) and display its results over a number of years. The display would include a total for the student, allowing them to see how much they would pay for their education overtime. Importantly, it lays out these options in an easy to understand format, allowing for a simple tool for students.

How we built it

We created simplistic mock-ups to demonstrate the viability of our concept. The online website, Canva, was utilized for this process. Powerpoint was used for our presentation slides. Excel was also utilized for the planning of and execution of a demonstrative calculator tool.

Challenges we ran into

Deciding on which factors to include in our mock-up and prototype excel sheet was a challenge we had to overcome. It was important to include factors that were important to college students while still ensuring that the page was still simple and easy to understand. Additionally, the actual graphic design of the website was a challenge. Choosing how to demonstrate the information required thought and care.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the mockups we created, the survey we spread, the powerpoint we made, and the idea we want to advocate for.

What we learned

This project has allowed us to better understand the student debt crisis and the factors causing it. Though it is a complex problem, we managed to focus on one factor of the problem - financial planning. Understanding the lack of financial planning tools and knowledge available to college students helped us design our tool. It also helped fuel our passion for the project. Most importantly, we’ve learned that this is a product that CMU students would want.

What's next for CMU Financial Aid Reimagined

We want our website to be considered as a tool to help students. Student debt is a real issue and financial planning can help students feel less financial anxiety. It may also ensure they make stable and realistic financial plans for the future. We want students to have access to this tool and believe it will help CMU students.