Trivia games, lottery among new ideas for paying off student loans

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- With 40 million Americans mired in student loan debt totaling $1.2 trillion, novel ways of a scoring a payoff are emerging.

An online trivia game puts a new spin on crowdfunding to pay off student loans. New Jersey is considering a lottery with a jackpot targeted to student loans. And presidential candidates are even proposing tuition-free college.

Thousands are taking a gamble on the pay-to-play Givling.com, which calls itself "gamified crowdfunding." The online startup pays off student debt with a trivia game.

Players pay 50 cents a game to be matched into a group of three. The players, called funders, compete to win cash prizes, as well as giving to a pot for a massive Givling fund. When that fund reaches $10 million, $5 million is distributed to student loan holders in a queue; $4 million goes to the highest scoring players; and the remaining $1 million goes to the daily cash prize.

Players are placed in a queue based on their time and date of registration, but they don't have to pay any games on Givling to be eligible for the big prize.

Kevin Foster, 26, who graduated from Manhattan Christian College in Kansas with a bachelor's degree in cross-cultural studies, recently hit the Givling jackpot, winning enough to pay off $32,000 in loans.

Foster never paid to play, instead signing up at the urging of his sister. She knew he dreamed of paying off his student loans so he and his wife, Karis, 21, could go to the Philippines to start an orphanage. They didn't want to leave the United States with lingering debt, even though church sponsors for their mission trip would have likely taken it on.

"I went into college fully knowing this was coming my way," he said of his student loans. "One of the biggest problems is uneducated kids going into the [student loan] system and having no idea what they getting into."

Lottery winners

About the same time this summer, New Jersey Assemblyman John J. Burzichelli proposed a lottery that would help students rid themselves of loan debt. The Democratic lawmaker proposed the lottery as a solution to the state's growing default rate of 8.6 percent. It would be "a market-based solution for rising college expenses and burdensome student loans."

Burzichelli said he decided to put the approach into action after local business leaders suggested the lottery.

"They looked at New Jersey and thought it would be a market where the game could work," Burzichelli said. "I'm not suggesting that the idea of a lottery fixes the larger problem, but it could be a novel way to bring some relief."

Presidential relief

Many of the 2016 presidential candidates have their own ideas. Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton rolled out a $350 billion proposal that includes free tuition at community colleges and reducing interest rates for those already paying student loans.

In response, Republican hopeful Jeb Bush laid out several initiatives, including decreasing college costs and improving the value of a college degree.

"We don't need more top-down Washington solutions that will raise the cost of college even further and shift the burden to hardworking taxpayers," he said. "We need to change the incentives for colleges with fresh policies that result in more individualization and choices, drive down overall costs, and improve the value of a college degree, which will help lead to real, sustained four-percent economic growth."

Debbie Cochrane of the advocacy group Institute for College Access and Success said such efforts are terrific but most fail to address some of the bigger problems that include the dramatic funding cuts from states to public colleges and universities.

"It's great that people are thinking creatively," Cochrane said, adding the bigger picture must be addressed. "The thing to stop the bleeding is for states to keep up the level of investment."