Education is often regarded as the greatest equalizer – it offers an egalitarian environment for all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity to learn and to achieve. Once optional for students, higher education has become a requirement for prospective employees. However, as college education becomes a necessity for employment, its cost has risen dramatically in the past decades, deteriorating the once romantic view of education. According to the College Board, a non-profit organization, the cost of a public four-year university has nearly tripled from $7,938 to $18,943. Yet, there has been stagnant growth in purchasing power for American as workers gained a mere 49 cent in purchasing power from 1964. Facing rising costs of secondary education and stagnant wages, college is becoming an …show more content…
One such path students take to alleviate their financial stress is through scholarships, a confusing and time-consuming process. My proposed app would revolutionize this process, enhanced with my own insights and experiences as a student. As I began my arduous journey, I realized that there was a crucial flaw in scholarships – there were simply too many sites. A Google search would yield countless sites such as Cappex, Scholarships.com, Niche and Fastweb. Furthermore, each site required students to navigate through a barrage of ads to find scholarships. After this barrage, I discovered that I was not eligible for most scholarships despite being deemed “a good match.” I spent more time finding scholarships that I was not eligible for than applying. Thus, my mobile app concept solves the complex world of scholarships. The application would compile a database of scholarships derived from numerous scholarship sites – eliminating the need to search other sites. Furthermore, the app will only ask for the student’s information to determine eligibility for scholarship – information such as address,