Former students in the United States are unable to pay their student loans off in a reasonable amount of time because student loan services are providing misleading information in order to make more money.
The who: Former Students
The what: They are unable to pay their student loans off in a reasonable amount of time
The why: Student loan services are providing misleading information in order to make more money
Testing the who: Everyone who is in my current who shares this need because they have to deal with the same companies that continue to screw people over such as Navient
Testing the what: The boundaries of the need are the people that have to deal with companies that are misleading their clients
Testing the why: The need is rooted in the information required is not being given and instead is being misled in order to make more money off each client.
After doing 6 interviews with UF alums, I learned that they had to really go out of their way to get information from the companies that were in charge of their student loans. They all had to call many times just to get even the slightest answer and instead had to turn to random websites and other ways of getting information in order to make sure they were paying off their debt as efficiently as possible. A couple said they were encouraged to go on a forbearance plan rather than an income-based repayment plan when the former was the right option for them. The company wanted to make more money off them by charging them extra interest later on.
I had no idea how serious of an issue this was until people in my own family had to deal with the exact same problems. It is very interesting how widespread of a problem this is and how there is nothing that is being done about it.
I thought this was definitely a great topic to discuss in your "testing the hypothesis". This has been an ongoing topic for many years about student loan debt. Being able to get rid of student loans and the forgiveness program. It was also discovered a lot of admission reps were telling students to take courses that were even needed for their degree to generate the school more revenue.
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