Education for All

Lowering Tuition Costs

Prepared for

Students, Parents,
Teachers, Guardians,
And all other interested parties

Prepared by

Student Helping Students

Mele Taufa
Jason Wright
Nathan McGriff
Orem UT, 84058

December 9, 2013

Student Helping Student
800 W University Pkwy
Orem, UT 84058

December 9, 2013

To whom it may concern,

We at Student Helping Students LLC are dedicating improving the quality of student education and wellbeing inside and outside of school. We believe that by working together we can overcome the problems that students face today to increase their opportunities as well as future generations. Because we are students ourselves we deal with the same problems as our fellow students allowing us to provide a unique point of view. In this document we research the causes of tuition and student debt and provide recommendations to lower the costs.

Our analysis has found that students take on unnecessary debt, through student loans, to pay for not only books and tuition but their living expenses without utilizing other resources. Because it grows slowly each semester, with students taking out only small loans each time, it is easy for them to result in large amounts of student debt. That debt, of any size, limits the student’s financial opportunities until it is paid off. For most students this results in hundreds of dollars a month for years but in extreme cases could be as much as a mortgage payment for just as long. Money that could be used to buy a house, be put into a retirement account, or help the next generation pay for school. All the while thousands of dollars of scholarship money goes unused each year. Many of those un-awarded scholarships are not even applied for. The main cause of which is simply a lack of knowledge on the students part. Through this report we plan on changing this by showing why costs are so high, how they can be lowered.

Student Helping Students LLC used several resources in forming our analysis. Federal Student Aid and office of the US department of Education, Finaid.org, The Association of American Universities, and students at Utah Valley University via a survey.

Thank you for reading our report. We hope that this answers your questions. If you have any further questions about our research or have recommendations for us please contact us (999-000-000, info@SHS.com) and we will be happy to answer them or pursue your recommendations.

Sincerely,

Nathan McGriff
SHS Team Member

Table of Contents

Letter of Transmittal…………………………………………………………………………ii

Report Summary……………………………………………………………………………..iv

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..1 Purpose and Scope…………………………………………………………………...1 Assumptions…………………………………………………………………………..1 Methods……………………………………………………………………………….1 Limitations……………………………………………………………………………1 Criteria………………………………………………………………………………..1

Student Debt………………………………………………………………………………….2 What students are using their loans for?...................................................................2 Ways to Reduce Student Costs……………………………………………………...3

Scholarships…………………………………………………………………………………..5 Available Scholarships……………………………………………………………….5 Student’s Beliefs, Knowledge, and Myths on scholarship…………………………6

How is an institution lowering their cost?..............................................................................7 Power saving devices…………………………………………………………………8 Cost of upgrades vs. overtime savings………………………………………………8 Student awareness and what assistance students can provide to lower costs…….8 Taxes…………………………………………………………………………………..9 Volunteers…………………………………………………………………………….9

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………10

References…………………………………………………………………………………….11

Education for All

Lowering Tuition Costs

Report summary

To lower the costs of tuition we first had to understand why the costs are so high and what ways that are available to lower them. Through our research we found that the main factors of