Feasibility Report for Increasing Grant Requirements

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Marketing

In order to market any of the plans we will discuss later in this report, the government would not need to seek out any new sort of marketing strategies that are not currently employed by the Department of Education. “Federal Student Aid is providing high schools with current data about their FAFSA submissions and completions so that high schools can track their progress and help to ensure that their students complete a FAFSA.” (Education, 2016) The U.S. Department of Education currently provides high schools with information for their students to complete a financial aid form, information on students within their student body, and what type of financial aid is available and to whom. Most high school students will complete their application for student aid before they graduate in their senior year. Therefore, a financial aid program does not necessarily need to be marketed as most students seek this information out all by themselves as they look for ways to pay for school. High school counselors are not the only ways for information any program or solution to get out. As more and more students in their mid-twenties to mid-forties age bracket continue to grow as they seek degrees to move up within their companies or seek new higher paying jobs, college and university advisors help post high [pic 3]school graduates seek out this same information as they also look for ways to pay for school. This is especially important in this age group, as many already have mortgages, families and expensive car loans to pay for. Anybody can access this information by going to https://fafsa.ed.gov/ and whether they are following the status quo approach or they utilize any of the solutions that we are going to propose later on, they can use this website and its step by step instruction to determine their method of assistance in paying for college. The newly proposed plan will mostly likely get exposure from all news outlets as well as C-SPAN. Seeing as it is a government issue, it will have to be voted on within the House and Senate in order to pass and these votes are televised on C-SPAN for those who can tolerate it. If or when it passes you can assure that it will be broadcast nationwide as education is a major talking point especially during an election year.

What of the Profits?

Colleges can be for profit or non-profit and each will have to be addressed separately. Obviously, non-profit schools do not receive profits, however, they can still increase the amount they pay their teachers, administrators, and board members. The key here, will be to make sure that all the extra money achieved due to success of any plan adopted is put to use for enrolling more students instead of increasing administration pocket books. Therefore, regulation and standards will be set forth and must be followed or severe consequences will be handed out. That being said, for profit schools will also receive an increase in enrollment due the accepted plan and these extra dollars will also have to be monitored and follow the same guidelines as non-profits or receive the same punishment. There is a thought as well as part of the end solution that these profits and extra enrollment dollars should be used in auxiliary issues that will further help students with other costs outside of the classroom instruction itself. We will hit on this more in depth during the proposal phase for a brief overview we will discuss the major points. As the increase in mid-twenty to mid-forty group continues to increase due to job educational expectations and the educational norm within society, their needs are different than those of students just graduating high school. “A majority of college students today are what is known as non-traditional: they are older, they have kids, they hold down full-time jobs while pursuing their coursework.” (Mason, 2015) As the divorce rate in United States continues to grow and the image of the typical student changes, issues such as child care need to be addressed. Any proposed plan should include a plan to provide child care at no additional fee to students going to any college or university in the United States. Many of the new image student face challenges outside of financing school, such as this, and if any plan to help educate our population is to be successful it needs to include ways to help students pay for other concerns regarding their ability to get or even stay in class. All and any profits received by schools should be used to put in place programs to address these issues and help students focus on their classwork instead of having to deal with their life issues while they are there. The key to any good plan is not correcting only a single facet of any issue, but you address the issue as a whole.

Solution #1

If you back to our section under the state of the problem and you take a look at the chart posted there, you can see that getting a four-year degree from an out of state college will leave you with roughly $120,000 in debt, going to school in state at a four-year university will leave you with roughly $40,000 in debt, while going to a two-year college will leave you with only $6,800 in debt. This shows that your route that will leave you with the least amount of debt is by going to a two-year college. The problem with this is that it only leaves you with an Associate’s Degree. We’ve already stated that you need at least a Bachelor’s Degree in order to get a decent paying job, so you are stuck going to an out of state or in state university; leaving you with the cheapest possible option being $26,800 in debt when you graduate college with a four-year degree. Solution #1 proposes that we transition all two-year college into four year colleges with the ability to earn a Bachelor’s Degree without having to transfer. This could be easily done and most of these two year colleges already have the teacher’s in place to support such a transition. “They’re already the least expensive higher education institutions in the country, and there’s no evidence that they provide an inferior education to more expensive schools.” (Matthews, 2013) If the education received is just as good from a cheap community college then why not make a Bachelor’s just as affordable to obtain as it is for an Associate’s Degree. The foreseeable problems with this plan would be that it would take dollars away from major Universities and students would still be straddled with at least $13,600 by the time they were done with their degree but that amount is far easier to pay off than would be the average $36,000 students are left with. The State government would also have to regulate and make sure that random community colleges were popping up without credibility just to take advantage