Addressing Financial Barriers to Higher-Education

Abstract

Many students choose not to pursue higher education due to its financial burden and the looming threat of debt that follows. However, 10 million dollars of scholarship money in Canada goes unclaimed each year due to a lack of applicants (Griffiths, 2022). Students who require financial assistance for higher education can only capitalize on the available scholarship money if they have the necessary skills to create successful applications (Hoff, 2013). Furthermore, the low-income students who will benefit the most from access to these resources often have to work part-time jobs after school, so they are unable to devote the necessary time to this process (Singh,1998). To address this barrier, we have developed an equitable, accessible module-based program that strives to connect the surplus of untapped scholarship money each year with students who desire to fund their pursuit of higher education. These modules will facilitate equitable access to higher education by fostering students' skills related to budgeting, financial planning, scholarship searching, and application writing and will be implemented directly in the high school curriculum. To facilitate their implementation and avoid any potential pitfalls, the modules would decrease the burden on educators, be accessible to students with disabilities, and include content-related to cybersecurity. By helping foster students' self-efficacy and confidence in their knowledge and skills so they can apply for funding, we aim to increase the number of people applying for scholarships so that financial resources are no longer a significant barrier to higher education.