// Case study
StuLo
A platform that helps US borrowers manage federal student loans: one picture of every loan, a clear next step, and coaches who prepare the paperwork.
Borrowers juggle several loans across servicers, repayment plans that are changing under new federal rules, forgiveness programs with strict paperwork, and servicer letters written in legalese. Mistakes are expensive — missed recertification, the wrong plan or a default notice ignored for too long. StuLo turns that into a guided path: sync, compare, prepare, review.
Design process
From the borrower’s real paperwork to a clickable prototype covering the whole service.
Repayment plans, PSLF rules, servicer letters and where borrowers get stuck.
What’s self-serve, what the AI coach answers and where a real coach steps in.
Onboarding and loan sync, next best step, forms, rescue and PSLF tracking.
Dashboard, loans, PSLF tracker, calculators, decoder and coach in one system.
A clickable prototype with new-user and with-data states, ready for handoff to engineering.
Problems
Student debt is stressful, and the system around it is fragmented, changing and unforgiving of mistakes.
Several loans across servicers, each with its own balance, rate, plan and status — there’s no single picture.
Repayment plans are changing: SAVE is ending and new options like RAP appear. Choosing the right one is hard.
Falling behind happens quietly. By the time a default notice arrives, options are fewer and costlier.
Forgiveness has strict rules: some loan types don’t qualify, and employment must be certified on time.
Solutions
Replace a maze of rules with one guided path — and real people where it matters.
A dashboard built around the next best step and an action checklist: upload, generate forms, proof of income, coaching call, sign and mail, recertify.
Loans sync from the official StudentAid.gov data file — balances, rates and servicers fill in automatically, with no FSA ID required.
A letter decoder turns servicer notices into plain English: key dates, amounts, what to do next and what happens if you don’t act.
An AI coach answers questions any time, and a real coach reviews prefilled .gov forms and finalizes the strategy.
User flow
The core path from a free analysis to forms reviewed by a coach. Under each step — the tools that help along the way.
Free loan analysis
StudentAid.gov file · no FSA ID
RAP · IBR · PSLF estimates
Prefilled .gov forms
Sign, mail, recertify
Design system
A deep navy that feels trustworthy, a friendly grotesque for headlines, and green reserved for progress and completed steps.
UI design
A dashboard that answers “what now?”, a PSLF tracker for the long game, and a sign-in that explains the value up front.
Results that matter.
One clear path through student debt: loans in one place, letters in plain English, and a real person checking the forms before anything is signed.
Let’s talk.
Tell me about the role or project — I reply within a day.