Overview

One in four U.S. adults have student loan debt, with Americans owing a total of about $1.6 trillion in student loans as of June 2024 (Pew Research Center).

These statistics inspired Professor David Musto and Dr. Jill Bazelon of the University of Pennsylvania to envision alternative ways to address the hot-button issues of student loan debt and financial literacy.

Our challenge was to educate and empower prospective college students to make informed decisions about their college finances.

Project Structure

One of the most unique requirements of this initiative was that we brought our primary target audience -- prospective college students -- to work on the project from the very beginning. This approach offered several advantages:

• We could iterate and collect feedback at a rapid pace because our target users were easily accessible and heavily involved in the development process.

• We could directly educate these students about the ins and outs of college financing through the process of building Finiverse.

• We could provide these students with hands-on skills that would enable them to be successful in college and beyond.

From the inception of the project until now, we have recruited and trained over 120 students in the areas of software development, product design, data research, and marketing

My Role

I am the primary product manager and product designer of this project. I manage and coordinate the activities of about 80 student interns and 7 team leads. My responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• Brainstorming and designing new workflows and product features

• Development and maintenance of brand identity across marketing and product materials

• In-depth planning and execution of user interviews and focus groups

• Onsite visits to local high schools to collect user feedback and conduct usability testing

• Documentation of requirements for our 20+ ongoing student projects each semester

The Problem

Problem Statement: Our goal was to pinpoint common gaps in students’ understanding of college financing and loans, then develop solutions to educate and empower them to make informed financial decisions.

Target Audience: Our primary target users are high school students who are planning to go to college, with a special focus on juniors and seniors.

Our secondary target users include high school counselors, parents, and teachers.

Initial Brainstorm & MVP

Working with about 10 high school students, we brainstormed and created a list of features to include in the MVP of Finiverse:

• Comparison of different college costs by sticker price and financial aid

• Calculation of student loan amount

• Explanation of different repayment plans, with a special emphasis on Income-Driven Repayment

• A simulation that showed users how different risks could affect their loan repayment plans and financial outcomes after college

After that, I started drawing out wireframes and low-fidelity mockups in Figma.

Iterations

After creating our initial design, we sourced feedback and input from more prospective high school students across the school district of Philadelphia.

Our goal was to identify areas in our design that students found confusing and incorporate any other gaps in financial literacy that we may have missed.

Research Methods

• Participatory Design: Worked alongside 120+ student interns to brainstorm and design the Finiverse app to address their most prevalent college financial needs.

• Usability Testing: To reduce selection bias within our cohort of student interns, we also observed 100+ students from different Philadelphia high schools as they navigated the full Finiverse workflow to pinpoint moments of frustration or confusion.

• Heatmaps and Click Tracking: Analyze user interactions on the Finiverse website to identify engagement patterns.

Key Insights

• Students didn’t know the difference between net price and sticker price.

• Many students already had a list of 5-7 colleges that they were considering apply to.

• Students skipped over the Financing Guide page because there were too many words.

• The majority of our students had never heard of Income-Driven Repayment plans, which are an underutilized federal repayment resource that can significantly reduce student loan burden.

These insights informed my decisions to add several major features over the next iterations of Finiverse:

1. College cost comparison by sticker price and net price

2. A calculator to estimate financial aid and net price based on the latest FAFSA guidelines (i.e. Student Aid Index)

3. A simulation feature to educate students about financial risks that could hinder loan repayment

The Product

Impact & Outcomes

User Feedback

Students have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback following Finiverse’s redesign:

• “I wish I had this last year [junior year] when I was choosing colleges”

• “I like the colors and design a lot better”

• “I will definitely use this again”

• This website is useful because “you don’t have to stress out about calculating the cost of college,” and it’s not too time consuming” because the website will do it for you

Launch Event

Following the redesign, Finiverse announced its official launch in partnership with the Wharton School of Business on April 19, 2024 (see article).

Success Metrics

Since then, we have received traffic of over 4,000+ users as of December 2024, and we are continuing to monitor and analyze the following success metrics to inform future product and marketing decisions:

• Number of active users and page views

• Instagram engagement (likes, comments, shares)

• Average engagement time

Media Coverage

“Philly high schoolers created an app to help classmates understand student loans and plan how to pay for college” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

“'Finiverse': App created by Philly students aims to help navigate student loans” (Fox 29 Philadelphia)

“Philly high schoolers develop easy app to help predict the true cost of college” (Technical.ly)

Reflection & Moving Forward

This project demonstrated to me the power of co-design processes while also surfacing the challenges with navigating selection bias.

I also learned to balance the goals of education and product development, which can sometimes be conflicting goals.

Copywriting was a big focus in this project because we had to make sure that the copy was accessible and understandable for the average high schooler.

I learned the importance of more granular market segmentation. We differentiated between high schoolers who definitely want to go to college versus those who aren't sure versus those who don't at all.

Moving forward, we are adding more features for high school students who are unsure which schools or jobs they are interested in -- this will allow Finiverse to be more widely used by underclassmen who are still early in the college decision process. We are also continuing to collaborate with local high schools so that Finiverse will be incorporated into their standard college and financial literacy curriculum.