Jenelle Janci

Temple University

What if your looming cloud of student loan debt could be alleviated by something as simple as an online trivia game?

Givling — a play-to-play online game — it attempting to do just that.

Launched March 4, the game allows trivia junkies to pay 50 cents a game plus a 30 cent transaction fee to be matched into random groups of three. These players, or “funders,” compete for a high score to win cash prizes of their own, while also helping people with paying off their student loans. Every player is allotted one free play daily.

Givling selects individuals in need of help with their debt through open calls on the game’s website and Facebook page. Once selected, individuals must submit proof of loan before Givling places them in the “queue” – a waiting list of people hoping to get their student loans paid off.

Gayle Okumura Sullivan, Givling’s director of marketing, says the game is a melting pot of several modern concepts.

“It’s a wonderful combination of many concepts pulled together: the interest in crowd funding, the interest in online games and more casual games like the trivia kind of games,” Sullivan says. “It’s applying these two concepts toward something good, which is helping fund student loan debt.”

While students could choose to play if they so wished, Sullivan says it isn’t necessary for students to compete in trivia play to have their loans paid.

“Those with student loan debt do not have to play the game at all,” Sullivan says. “They are in the queue. They are just waiting for the loan to be funded.”

There are two different ways for players to win cash prizes. Every day at noon the highest scoring team will split a daily cash prize. The amount for this prize changes daily and is at the top of the page on Givling’s website.

Additionally, once a complete “Givling” – $10 million – is funded by the fee paid by players, $5 million is distributed to student loan holders in the queue and $4 million is distributed amongst the highest scoring players. The remaining $1 million goes toward the daily cash prize. 90% of all the funds raised by the game are given away to loan holders and players, Sullivan says.

Some states, however, don’t allow winners to collect cash prizes, so be sure to check online to see if your state does. Sullivan says that Givling is currently working on changing this.

The game addresses a widespread economic struggle. Student loan debt affects over 40 million Americans, with the total debt totaling over $1 trillion, according to CNN.

Lizbeth Pratt founded Givling after recognizing how large the American student loan debt crisis had become. Pratt works with her son Preston on the project, Sullivan says.

Leonardo Almanza, a senior studying biology at American University, says he likes the concept and thinks the price to play is reasonable, but was concerned about being randomly placed into teams.

“The only issue I think people will have with it is the group aspect because it can affect your score, but they seem to bypass that concern since they give the best player the biggest prize,” Almanza says.

Almanza also says he likes that the students don’t have to play to benefit.

“I think that it will help people with their student loans, and the best part is that they don’t have to invest,” Almanza says.

“I hope it is successful in helping people,” says Eva Miller, a sophomore media studies major at New Jersey City University. “It is a fantastic idea for sure, even if it doesn’t work.”

Sullivan says the biggest challenge of Givling’s launch has been explaining such a new concept to people – a game that combines technology, crowdfunding and solving student debt.

“I think it’s such an innovative use of all of those things,” Sullivan says. “That’s what I love about it.”

Although Givling currently exists as a desktop product, a mobile version of the game is set to launch in April.

Jenelle Janci is a student at Temple University and a spring 2015 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.