Besides the normal issues of transitioning into an uncertain job market, Brendonfelt frustrated with the complexities of the student loan repayment process. “As a college graduate facing loans of my own, I had a first-hand understanding ofthe need for an effective, simple tool to manage loans.” – McQueen Tuition.io, a free service dedicated to helping students manage their loanportfolios, launched into public beta on January 2nd. In private beta, Tuition.iohas already helped borrowers from over 130 universities, including the top 25in the nation, manage over $100 million in debt and 10,000 student loans. Thecompany recently closed their seed round and has partnered with a number oforganizations, including Student Veterans of America and OurTime.org. In order to better understand the product, I decided to do my own personalresearch. For the past few weeks, I have been using the service to analyze mystudent loans. It is simple to select the banks that oversee your loans (federal orprivate) and sign into them via Tuition.io. All of my loans are shown in the maindashboard, displaying the trade-off between paying the entire loan now versusyears out (including interest rates and monthly payment calendars). In addition to displaying my loans and helping me plan out repayment, Tuition.iotakes one more step and offers plans for optimization. After a quick quiz,they offered me options for direct debt consolidation, private consolidation,income-based repayment, and other solutions for savings and loan simplification(displaying the pros and cons in a readable way for each option). Given that the average American adult has 3.5 student loans totaling $26,000 ofdebt, the market for this service is large. The monetization strategy involves offering refinancing options that make sense for the individual based on their unique student loan situation. Moreover, given the longevity of student loan repayment, I speculate that Tuition.io could move from loan repayment to personal finance or investment. Parents, teachers, and community leaders help students prepare for collegethroughout primary and secondary education. However, the transition out ofcollege can be challenging. Trying to land a job in an uncertain economic climate,finding your true passion, and moving into a new apartment can be difficult for arecent college graduate – at least now student loan repayment can be a bit easierwith Tuition.io.
