As more and more Americans head to college, there are also multitudes leaving their ivy-decked institutions with tens of thousands in student debt. That’s where Tuition.io comes in. This free tool allows students to see their loans in one centralized dashboard, allowing them to see their options as students and graduates.
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At the end of February, Launchpad.la graduate Tuition.io raised $1 million in seed funding from a variety of investors. They also announced managing over $250 million in user debt at that time.
We caught up with Tuition.io president and co-founder Steve Pomerantz to learn more about his company. Read on to see what he had to say.
How did the idea for Tuition.io come about?
My partner (our CEO) Brendon McQueen, came out of Columbia at the height of the recession with $120k in student debt spread across 12 loans and 7 different loan servicers. He went looking online for any tool that would help him figure out how much he owed, who he owed and what his options were, and he came up empty, so Tuition.io was started to answer those questions.
Tell us about your team.
We have a team of rockstars here who left well known startups, nonprofits and Fortune 50 companies because we all share a passion for helping student loan borrowers. Like most companies at our stage, we work hard and geek out frequently; unlike most, we have a cat-themed weekly team roundup email. We share office space in downtown Santa Monica with our good friends and fellow Launchpad.la alums YieldMetrics. In addition to our core team, we're fortunate to have supportive and influential investors, the team at Launchpad and some fantastic interns in our corner.
How will your product change the student loan industry?
Most of the institutions you deal with (university financial aid offices, lenders, loan servicers, the federal government) are well-meaning, but they still rely heavily on paper and fairly basic online tools, which leads to a lot of confusion and frustration. We're using the most current innovations to bring the borrowing experience up to date.
What do you offer that those with student loans can't find elsewhere?
Through a series of partnerships and because of the advanced backend tools we've taken the time to build, we're able to show you all your loans in one place, whereas some other tools out there are only able to show you loans from certain lenders. People also love our highly visual approach. Specifically, we get a lot of very positive feedback on our slider tool that lets you see how your situation would change if you added a little to your monthly payments.
What have you achieved so far?
Since launching to the public on January 2, 2013, we've already helped thousands of borrowers at over 130 schools manage well over $250 million of student debt.
What are your goals for the rest of 2013?
We're very proud of some exciting new features we're rolling out that will expand the options available to borrowers and will make Tuition.io a great resource for students thinking about taking on new educational debt. Stay tuned...
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