Process

Research

In order to better understand the student loan crisis, we researched the area to learn more details. The collective student loan debt among Americans currently exceeds $1.4 trillion. Due to student loan debt, people during post-grad struggle to keep up with payments and compounding interest can accumulate. By looking at current news articles about the loan crisis and the StudentAid.gov, we gained a better sense of what type of information is available to the public. We realized the information for people interested in student loans are scattered and confusing. There is no clear breakdown of financial concepts and loan logistics laid out.

Initial Hypotheses

Initially, we were interested in learning about how certain factors might affect different groups of people with student loans.

1. People who take student loans are more likely to focus on fulfilling short-term financial goals rather than long-term financial goals like retirement.
2. Student loans are more likely to negatively affect the financial wellbeing of certain social strata more so than other races.
3. Individuals who are financially literate are more likely to have higher financial wellbeing, such feeling secure about their finances and being able to enjoy life.

Iterations

In our first version, we made a straightforward survey that asked participants about their student loans and how they felt about them. But this wasn't the best way to learn about people's relationship with their loans.

We tried a new approach where we hypothesized a correlation between people's financial habits and their student loans. But this still felt too confrontational to directly ask about how people felt about their loans.

Instead of asking people about their student loans, we tried a more subtle method of asking participants of their financial habits first. By introducing student loan questions halfway through, it gave participants a chance to answer the financial questions with reduced bias in relation to their student loans.

Updated Hypothesis

But upon our iterations and feedback, we came to the conclusion that there is a stronger tie between one's financial habits, especially credit cards, with their student loans.

People's relationship with their credit cards parallels their relationship to their student loans.

Feedback

We reached out to 2 design researchers to walk through our survey to see how comprehensive it was. We received feedback on wording around certain concepts such as budgeting and financial wellbeing. We revised and clarified where we worded certain ideas. For instance, we rephrased 'budgeting' to be 'managing expenses' because it's a more holistic term that everyone relates too.

Learning 1: Wording
The term 'budgeting' is unfair because it implies people should be budgeting. In reality, some people have a mental model of how much they are spending without making a strict budget (i.e spending $1000/month). Usually, people have an understanding of their spending and expenses without tracking every dollar and cent.

Additionally, they thought the survey was too long, and by the time they reached the end, they were tired of answering questions. We shortened the survey but maintained the key questions we wanted participants to answer. The second to last section on our survey asks participants their thoughts on a few concepts. This part felt like an after thought to the survey. In order to strengthen it, we asked more insightful questions and impactful concept descriptions. Lastly, we rephrased how we asked certain questions to reduce confusion.

Learning 2: Concept Engagement
It's hard to ask how 'engaging' a concept is because people have different ideas and emotional responses toward it. It's more effective to ask why people resonate or don't resonate with a concept to fully understand their reasoning.

Concepts on Humanizing Student Loans

Inspired by the current credit card system, we brainstormed ideas on what could humanize student loans in a way that incentivized individuals to pay back their loans fully and on time. Credit cards offer reward systems or cashback that incentivize the usage of credit cards. But most importantly, they build credit. If student loans could build up a loyalty system that informs the individual is trustworthy, it may inspire people to have a closer relationship to their loans.

Next Steps

If we had additional time to continue this survey, we would have conducted more test-runs of the survey to see how understandable the survey is. Additionally, we would have sent the survey out through cint.com to reach a balanced sample. We would have synthesized and analyzed the data to come to an understanding of people's relationship to their financial habits and student loans.

If you would like to try out our survey, please feel free to check it out below. However, the survey is intended for those paying back their undergraduate student loans and have at least 1 credit card.