LoanWise-AI

Pay off student loans smarter, not harder.

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LoanWise AI — Intelligent Student Debt Optimizer

Inspiration

Student loan debt in the U.S. has surpassed $1.7 trillion, impacting over 45 million borrowers. Yet most graduates default to the Standard 10-year repayment plan, often unaware that alternatives like Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) or Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) could save them thousands.

The issue isn’t a lack of options — it’s a lack of clarity.

Existing tools are either hidden behind paywalls, overloaded with financial jargon, or require hours of manual calculations. LoanWise was built to simplify this complexity into one clear outcome:

“What’s the smartest way to pay off my loans?”

No finance degree. No advisor required.

What It Does

LoanWise is a real-time student loan repayment optimizer that analyzes a borrower’s financial profile and compares all viable repayment strategies instantly.

Smart Calculator Enter loan balance, interest rate, income, household size, and employment type. LoanWise simulates repayment across:

  • Standard
  • Extended
  • IDR (SAVE/REPAYE)
  • PSLF

AI Recommendation Engine Automatically identifies the most cost-efficient plan and highlights projected savings with a clear, actionable verdict.

Visual Dashboards Interactive Chart.js visualizations display:

  • Balance burn-down curves
  • Principal vs. interest breakdown

Forgiveness Eligibility Checker Instant screening for:

  • PSLF
  • IDR Forgiveness
  • Teacher Loan Forgiveness
  • Borrower Defense

Finley — AI Finance Advisor A conversational AI assistant powered by Groq (Llama 3.3 70B) with additional intelligence layers via the Gemini API, delivering concise, plain-English answers with actionable guidance and built-in disclaimers.

Personalized AI Insights After each analysis, AI generates 4 tailored savings tips based on the user’s exact financial inputs.

User Accounts & Saved Plans Firebase Auth (Google, Email, Phone OTP, Anonymous) + Firestore enables users to securely save and revisit analyses.

Voice AI (In Progress) We are actively integrating ElevenLabs API for voice-based financial guidance. This feature is currently in development and not yet in production.

How We Built It

Layer Technology
Frontend Vanilla HTML, CSS, JavaScript (no frameworks)
Design System Custom CSS tokens (inspired by Stripe/Linear), Inter + JetBrains Mono
Calculation Engine Pure JS (calculations.js) implementing amortization + IDR logic
Data Visualization Chart.js 4.4
AI Layer Groq API (Llama 3.3 70B) + Gemini API
Authentication Firebase Auth (Google, Email, Phone OTP, Anonymous)
Database Cloud Firestore
Analytics Firebase Analytics
Icons Phosphor Icons

Challenges We Faced

Amortization Accuracy IDR plans depend on discretionary income tied to Federal Poverty Guidelines, which vary by household size. Ensuring accuracy required deep validation against official Department of Education documentation and extensive edge-case testing.

Authentication UX We wanted login requirements without friction. Users can explore freely, but “Run Analysis” triggers a smooth modal with multiple sign-in options instead of a hard redirect.

AI Response Quality Early chatbot outputs were too verbose. We refined this through strict prompt engineering:

  • 3–5 sentence limit
  • Mandatory disclaimers
  • Clear refusal of off-topic queries

Phone OTP Complexity Firebase Phone Auth required careful handling of invisible reCAPTCHA resets and edge cases like blocked popups.

Performance Without Frameworks Building a responsive, interactive app using pure JavaScript required disciplined DOM management and modular architecture.

What We’re Proud Of

  • A fully functional app in a single HTML file — no build step, no backend
  • Finley delivers concise, useful financial guidance (not generic chatbot fluff)
  • Real-time UI updates (DTI ratios, payments) create a true fintech experience
  • Seamless 4-method authentication in one clean modal
  • Combined visual + numerical transparency (charts + amortization tables)
  • A polished, production-quality design system built without Tailwind or frameworks

What We Learned

  • Loan math is deceptively complex — especially IDR and forgiveness rules
  • Prompt engineering is critical — small constraints dramatically improve AI usefulness
  • Firebase Auth is powerful even in a fully static app
  • Vanilla JS scales surprisingly well for focused, single-page tools

What’s Next

  • PDF Export — Download shareable analysis reports
  • Amortization Drill-Down — Month-by-month breakdowns
  • What-If Scenarios — Income growth, extra payments, etc.
  • Refinancing Comparison — Federal vs. private loan optimization
  • Multi-Loan Support — Portfolio-level optimization
  • Mobile App — PWA or React Native wrapper
  • Finley Memory — Context-aware AI advice based on past analyses
  • Voice AI (ElevenLabs) — Conversational, voice-based financial guidance (in development)

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