Kelly Peeler, 29

FOUNDER, NEXTGENVEST

Americans owe more than $1.4 trillion in student debt. And Kelly Peeler thinks that whopping figure may very well be an underlying cause of economic instability. She worked at Jpmorgan Chase right after the 2008 crash, and while there, she says, “I got my hands dirty understanding the dynamics around the student loan market and how predatory this whole process was for the 70 million [Generation Z] people who will be entering the financial system for the first time . . . . I’m a huge believer that the next financial crisis is rooted in the student loan market.”

She left her Wall Street job to found Nextgenvest, a financial advice company helping Gen Z better navigate the financial-aid process via text message. Its customers (all high school seniors and college students) can text for advice at all hours of the day—and they do. Queries at 10 p.m. on Sunday aren’t uncommon. Neither are ones at 1 a.m. on Tuesdays. So Nextgenvest is staffed accordingly, with advisors available 24/7. The service is already available in 13 cities, and Peeler hopes to be in 25 more next year. Nextgenvest promises personalized advice honed by machine learning based on data points such as type of school and location. Nextgenvest uses this information to connect students with relevant grant opportunities. In all, Peeler says, customers have saved more than $39 million through increasing access to the more than $2.7 billion in financial aid that goes unclaimed each year.

—Alexandra Wilson