Inspiration

We were inspired by how difficult it can be for college students to understand the real financial impact of their education. Students often think about tuition and loans separately from their income, spending, and long-term financial goals. We wanted to create a platform that connects these pieces and helps students see the bigger picture early.

What it does

Maple Grow is a financial planning platform designed for students. It combines education-cost and student-debt data with personalized financial information to help students understand their financial situation.

Users can explore:

Current U.S. student-debt data Education costs across public, private nonprofit, and for-profit universities Graduate, law, and medical-school debt Their own income, expenses, savings, and financial goals Potential long-term financial growth through investing and saving

The goal is to turn complicated financial information into something students can actually understand and use.

How we built it

We built Maple Grow as a web application with a modern, interactive interface. We used Base44 to rapidly develop the application and its core functionality, while integrating Google Gemini to provide an AI-powered conversational experience.

We also designed the application around real financial and education data so users can compare their personal situation with broader student-debt and college-cost trends.

Our architecture combines a frontend experience, financial-data components, and AI functionality into one platform.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how to present a large amount of financial information without overwhelming students.

We also had to think carefully about how to make financial projections understandable while avoiding the impression that projections are guaranteed outcomes.

Another challenge was integrating the AI chatbot with the rest of the application while keeping the user experience simple and intuitive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud that we turned an idea into a functional prototype that brings student debt, education costs, personal finances, and AI assistance together in one platform.

We're especially proud of the conversational interface because it gives students a more natural way to ask questions about their finances instead of having to navigate through complicated financial tools.

We also created Maple Grow with scalability in mind, so it can eventually support more financial data, personalization, and student-focused tools.

What we learned

We learned that building a financial application isn't just about collecting data—the way information is presented matters just as much as the information itself.

We also learned how important it is to validate assumptions, design around the actual needs of users, and clearly communicate uncertainty when dealing with financial projections.

Most importantly, we learned how AI can be used as an interface for financial education rather than simply as a chatbot.

What's next for Maple Grow

Our next goal is to make Maple Grow much more personalized.

We want to add:

Personalized financial-growth projections More comprehensive college and student-debt datasets Scholarship and financial-aid opportunities Personalized budgeting recommendations Investment and savings simulations Better AI financial guidance through Gemini A dashboard that tracks a student's financial progress over time