Somewhere along the way of going to college to get a degree that will land us a good job and a stable future, America has somehow found itself in a pickle and amassed a 1.2 trillion dollar student loan debt. That's a hard pill to swallow, especially for the thousands of fresh grads (and even those who have been out of school for years already) who can't shake the demons of their loans that they have to pay up or lose everything.
Thankfully, one company is trying to help. Givling is an online trivia game that may help some people pay off their debt, one question at a time.
Student loans have been a tricky business. Many graduates have to begin repaying their debt the moment they receive their diplomas. According to a report by Experian, as described on Wired, "the average amount borrowed by US graduates clocks in at $29,400-and unlike other types of debt, you generally can't get out of your student loans by filing for bankruptcy."
So what else is there to do but treat a student loan like a mortgage and put away most of your savings towards paying it for the first decade or so of your life after graduation.
Or you can try your luck on an online trivia game like Givling.
The mechanics of the game seem straightforward enough. You can sign up to play with a small fee of just 50 cents. At noon EST everyday, random teams of three are created to answer True or False trivia questions. Themes of the questions themselves range from pop culture to history, to current events.
Teams are only allowed up to three wrong answers before their out of the game. The longer the team can pull through, the more they get closer to the possibility of winning cash and becoming internet millionaires as the winning team of the day.
And, according to reports, those who have a massive amount of college debt they need to repay have an extra incentive to participate.
Givling has created a funding queue on Facebook which they have called Giving. You don't even need to be a Givling player in order to join the Giving queue. Once this queue hits its goal of $10 million, those at the front of the queue will share $5 million of the raised funds. $4 million will go to the winners of the daily Givling trivia game, and the remaining $1 million will go towards other daily prizes.
Sure, it's not exactly an easy way out of student loan debt and the 50 cent fee to join each game isn't exactly cheap, but it is an indication that start-up companies are beginning to recognize the massive problem that college loans have become for the US and how they are creatively trying to help solve the problem.
Although Givling's official website is still under construction as of this writing, the company has announced on their Twitter account that they will launch on March 4.
Givling-the trivia game that awards funders and pays off student debt, launches March 4 NoonEST #Whatthehellisgivling pic.twitter.com/TajiAv9qXt
— Givling (@Givling) March 3, 2015
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Header Image: Lendingmemo | Flickr
Photo : DonkeyHotey | Flickr
