TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................. 1

II. INITIATING .............................................................................................................................. 3

A. PROBLEM....................................................................................................................................... 3

B. PROJECT SCOPE ............................................................................................................................ 3

III. PLANNING AND ORGANIZING ............................................................................................... 4

A. PROJECT GOALS ........................................................................................................................... 4

B. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN ................................................................................... 5

C. SCHEDULE ..................................................................................................................................... 5

i. Milestone ..................................................................................................................................... 5

ii. Timeline ...................................................................................................................................... 6

D. QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN .................................................................................................... 7

E. RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN ............................................................................................................ 7

F. PROPOSED PROJECT BUDGET ...................................................................................................... 8

IV. EXECUTION............................................................................................................................ 9

V. MONITORING AND CONTROLLING ....................................................................................... 12

A. MONITORING .................................................................................................................................. 12

B. CONTROLLING ................................................................................................................................. 13

CLOSING THE PROJECT ............................................................................................................ 13

A. EVALUATION OF KEY METRICS ............................................................................................................ 13

B. LESSONS LEARNED ........................................................................................................................... 14

C. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE PROJECTS ........................................................................................ 17

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................................... 18
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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 II. INITIATING

A. PROBLEM

Students at Herriman High School (HHS) aren't

educated on the true costs and ways to pay for college.

Based on a survey we did at our school, 77% of HHS

students believe that scholarships will pay for their college,

but according to The Washington Post, less than 1% of

college students actually receive enough scholarships and

grants to pay for their education in full. They underestimate

the cost of their post-secondary education, or they think

they will be offered more scholarships than is realistic.

B. PROJECT SCOPE

Purpose: The purpose of our project is to educate students about financial aid

resources and ways to pay for college. We aim to provide students with access to

many online resources such as Scholly, College Board, and Scholarship.com by doing

presentations during ACT Prep and Financial Literacy classes. We also want to

advertise scholarship labs offered at our school and encourage students to attend

College Night, where many resources are available to juniors and seniors. We will do

this by posting on social media and making school-wide announcements

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Rationale: The rationale of our project is to help students who are most directly

impacted by the stress of paying for college by giving them an opportunity to have

questions answered about their direct situations.

Expected Benefits: The expected benefits from doing this project are an increased

attendance at Herriman High’s annual College Night and increased awareness of

financial aid resources and methods of paying for college. It will also provide a place

for students and teachers to find out all the necessary information regarding college,

not just financial information.

III. PLANNING AND ORGANIZING

A. PROJECT GOALS

The three goals of this project are

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B. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN

C. SCHEDULE

i. Milestones

Our first milestone was College Night, on October 10, 2019. By this date we

needed to establish an attendance goal, advertise the event to increase attendance,

meet deadlines set by school counselors, and encourage parents and students to

attend the event. Our next milestone was teaching a lesson to classes regarding

paying for college. We needed to accomplish this in a timely manner in relation to

Utah College Application week and College Night in order to remind students about

the obstacles that come with applying and paying for college while those events were

fresh in their minds.

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ii. Timeline

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D. QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN

The key metrics of our success include an increase in attendees at the annual

College Night and lessons taught to 100 sophomores and juniors. If we can double the

number of attendees at

College Night and successfully

teach 100 juniors and

sophomores about available

financial aid resources, our

project will be a success.

We will maintain good quality by approving our advertisements and lessons with our

teacher and advisor. Good quality advertisements will include information relevant to

Herriman High students.

E. RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN

An issue we might face is

parents not receiving postcards or

notifications to become aware of

College Night. To avoid this risk, we will send both the postcards and an electronic

notification so parents are more likely to be informed of the event. There is also the

risk of parents and students having other obligations the day of College Night. A risk

we might face when teaching students is they may not be fully engaged or pay

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attention to the lessons. We will avoid this risk by making the lessons applicable and

engaging so students actually value the information provided. A risk of the scholarship

labs is students may not have time in their schedule to attend. This risk is avoided by

offering the labs both during a free period and after school so they have multiple

opportunities to go.

F. PROPOSED PROJECT BUDGET

Our proposed budget was $500, which we

planned on using for printed materials. We

designed and printed posters to hang around the

school for $3 each. We also designed postcards and

printed 1,300 of them through Print Express and

then mailed

them through

the postal service from Herriman High School.

This cost $0.33 per postcard. The posters, along

with postcard printing and mailing cost about

$460, which was 92% of our original allocated

budget for the project.

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 IV. EXECUTION

College Night:

College Night took place on

October 10, 2019. In order to prepare

for College Night, we started by

conducting a survey asking Herriman

High students questions regarding the

average cost of college, student debt,

and how they expect to pay for their

higher education. After analyzing the results from the survey, we found that of the

86% of students planning to pursue a higher education, 77% are expecting to pay for

their education with scholarships. In reality, just about 30% of college students

nationwide obtain enough scholarships and grants to cover the full cost of college. We

also found that 62% of Herriman High juniors and seniors had never filled out a FAFSA

application, thus limiting their ability to obtain financial aid. Based on these results, we

aimed to increase awareness and attendance at College Night to not only raise

awareness of local scholarships available to students but also to better provide

answers to general college questions.

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 We created a series of

posters and handouts for students

at Herriman High to promote

College Night. We also posted on

several social media platforms

reaching out to students and

parents about the event. Through

these various advertisements and

school wide announcements, we

hoped to double the number of

attendees. During College Night,

we hosted a representative from FAFSA and a station for students to fill out their

applications. Multiple colleges and universities from across the state of Utah provided

meaningful information to students about attending their school and college life in

general. Students were exposed to many resources, and many were able to complete

a FAFSA application. Due to our advertising, the number of attendees at College

Night more than doubled from previous years. This means that more than two times

the number of students were able to expose themselves to financial aid resources and

answers to questions about college.

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Scholarship labs:

While very few students across the

U.S. pay for the entirety of their college

costs with scholarships, 57% of college

students pay for at least a portion of their

schooling with grants, scholarships, and

other forms of financial aid. With the

average American student loan debt

being $30,000-$40,000, students can use

as much financial aid as possible. Herriman

High hosts scholarship labs every Thursday

during an academic period and after

school. The goal of the scholarship labs is

to get students to apply for any and all

applicable scholarships and grants to minimize the need for loans. Very few students

attend these labs, so we created fliers and handouts to promote them. Juniors and

seniors were given individual posters with the information on the labs since they are

most directly affected by the troubles of paying for college. We made announcements

every day to all students encouraging them to attend these labs and learn how to

apply for scholarships.

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Classes:

The final goal we executed was teaching students about available financial resources.

We visited financial literacy and ACT prep classes to emphasize the importance of

applying for scholarships, getting high test scores to qualify for scholarships,

completing FAFSA applications, and being aware of and using all available resources.

The classes we taught mostly consisted of upperclassmen, who benefit the most from

information regarding college. We were able to engage the students on discussions

about their goals for college and their plans for paying for it. We shared our survey

results with them helped them understand the reality of attending and paying for a

higher education.

V. MONITORING AND CONTROLLING

A. MONITORING

Each week we met with our teacher and DECA

advisor, Randall Kammerman (pictured), to ensure our

project was well organized, and executed in a productive

way. We set weekly goals and standards we had to meet,

and our teachers helped us maintain the best quality in

every aspect of our project, including development,

marketing, and execution.

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B. CONTROLLING

We monitored how many students attended College Night in previous years had then

made goals to double that number. We attempted to monitor how many people

attended the event by having a sign-in sheet at the main entrance of the school. We

ran into an issue here because there were multiple entrances and we were not able to

record everyone that entered if they didn’t sign in.

VI. CLOSING THE PROJECT

A. EVALUATION OF KEY METRICS

We hung 10 posters

around the school,

spreading awareness of

scholarship labs and

financial aid resources. The

placement of these posters

was enough to give proper

exposure all around the school. 1,300 postcards were mailed home to all juniors and

seniors of Herriman High, costing $430. This was enough to target the students who

are most directly affected by needing to pay for college.

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 Our goal for attendees at College Night was 200, hoping to double the number

of people there from previous years. A total of 497 people signed in at the event, and

many more participated without signing in. This was a dramatic increase and a major

success. A total of 100 students were taught lessons on the importance of qualifying

for scholarships, grants, FAFSA applications, and accessing readily available financial

aid websites and resources.

B. LESSONS LEARNED

Initiating:

Starting our project early was a great advantage for us, because College Night

happened soon after school started. Our work was also ready for us to initiate because

we had the help of school

counselors who have been in charge

of hosting this event in past years.

Initiating teaching our lessons

began with conducting our survey

about how aware high school kids

are on the costs of higher education. As we gathered the results from the survey we

were able to then determine what lessons would best cater to juniors and seniors

regarding paying for college. Some issues we faced when initiating our project was we

had to get started right away. There was very little time for error or delay. Another

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issue was figuring out what kind of questions to ask in our survey to best understand

students’ knowledge on our problem. Once we overcame these obstacles we were

able to conduct an effective survey and host a successful event.

Planning and organizing:

We had an advantage when planning College Night because our counselors

knew what needed to be done and gave us assignments. Most of our planning

included creating visual advertisements, posting on social media, and making school

wide announcements. We were able to keep this organized because as teenagers we

are good at visual representations and social media use. Having a designated class

period kept us organized as well. Planning our lessons to teach was a little challenging

because we needed to evaluate our survey results and determine the best facts and

resources to provide to students.

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Execution:

` Because of our advertisement and encouraging students to attend College

Night, we were able to more than double the amount of attendees. We too attended

the event and were able to benefit from the information provided. Due to the major

increase of people at the event, it got pretty crowded. This might’ve made it hard for

those in attendance to see all that was offered, and it also made it somewhat difficult

to measure exactly how many people came. Not everyone signed in, so our numbers

were not as organized as it could’ve been.

The lessons we taught were well executed by keeping the students engaged

and making the lesson applicable to them. One problem we faced regarding

scholarship labs was students may have had other obligations during the times when

scholarship labs were available,

so they may not be able to

attend. Students may have also

disregard advertisements so our

efforts might not have been

effective.

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Monitoring and Controlling:

We monitored how many students attended College Night in previous years

had then made goals to double that number. We attempted to monitor how many

people attended the event by having a sign-in sheet at the main entrance of the

school. We ran into an issue here because there were multiple entrances and we were

not able to record everyone that entered if they didn’t sign in.

C. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE PROJECTS

One recommendation we have for future projects is completing a post-survey

to determine if College Night was successful in providing access to FAFSA

applications and college resources. This survey could include questions determining if

College Night was beneficial in answering financial questions in addition to general

college questions. We also recommend monitoring the number of people who showed

up by having sign-in sheets at all the entrances.

For the lessons taught we recommend teaching multiple class periods

throughout the day instead of limiting it to only one class period. Teaching more than

one class period would engage students at different times of the day when they are

more alert instead of only teaching during the last period of the day when students

want to go home. It would also allow the lesson to reach more students.

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 VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-rare-are-full-ride-scholarships/

https://www.collegeraptor.com/paying-for-college/articles/scholarship-search-

applications/scholarship-statistics-where-most-scholarships-come-from-infographic/

https://www.salliemae.com/about/leading-research/how-america-pays-for-college/

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