Jubilee

Student Debt Management

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Inspiration

Student loan debt has reached astronomical levels in the U.S., with 44.2 million Americans carrying an estimated $1.48 trillion in education debt. The average class of 2017 graduate left school with $39,400 in student loans. The financial burden of student loan debt proves heavier to bear for some borrowers than others.

The name Jubilee comes from the Bible in which it literally translates to ("Year of Release") during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, and debts would be forgiven.

What it does

Jubilee allows users to link and sync all their student loans via the Plaid Liabilities API. Once linked, users can compare different payment plans and visually discern when their debts will be repaid in full and how much they'll eventually pay. Monthly payment strategies can be chosen between Snowball, Avalanche, and Default. Completed loans with no remaining balance will be eligible for a reward redemption.

How we built it

We built the front end with Vue for the UI and we visualized loan data with ChartJS. We accessed the Plaid APIs via a Firebase Cloud Function end point and stored data in a Firebase Realtime Database and hosted the web app on Firebase Hosting.

Challenges we ran into

We were unable to get Plaid Link to work with Flutter or React Native so we decided to go with a web-based approach instead of a mobile app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to test and confirm that our app works with real loan data using an actual FedLoan account.

What we learned

That there are many potential ways to organize and present debt information to consumers to help improve their financial literacy and aid them in making informed decisions about how to optimally tackle and reduce their debt obligations.

What's next for Jubilee

Allow for a wider variety of visualizations to aid in understanding. Enter into partnerships/acquire sponsorships for reward redemption. Enhance the gamification/milestone tracking for debt repayment. Track user debt over time and provide personalized recommendations for debt reduction.

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