final project proposal

Financial Aid Consumer Information
Marie Garcia
Marieg1227@gmail.com
10/08/2009
EDTEC 541, Thursday 7pm Section

 

Problem, Need or Opportunity

Parents and students, prospective and current, at the University of San Diego are often interested in finding more information about Financial Aid.  The Office of Financial Aid at the University of San Diego provides a guide called “A Guide to Financial Aid Consumer Information at USD” in Adobe PDF format.  Because this document is over 30 pages long and is poorly advertised, many students and parents do not know that it is available.  This guide provides an array of useful information parents and students about financial aid.

Audience

The main audience would be the prospective and current students and parents at the University of San Diego.   The creation of this site would also help the Office of Financial Aid provide more up to date information to parents and students and could potentially help answer commonly asked questions.

Users Needs

After speaking with Financial Aid administrators, counselors and current students and their parents, many of them expressed great interest in having access to the information provided in the guide in the form of a web site. 

  • Many current students want to see information about important deadlines and instructions on how to complete the necessary paperwork for their Financial Aid.
  • Parents want a more detailed explanation of the types of financial aid available at USD.  For example, different types of loans and scholarships and how to obtain those funds.
  • Financial Aid administrators felt that having the information available through a web site would make more students and parents more inclined to seek the information, rather than trying to read a document online.

These needs would be addressed by providing the information included in “A Guide to Financial Aid Consumer Information at USD” in the form of a web site that can be updated regularly.  Having the information available in a way that is easier to read and quickly accessible through organized links will also help serve the needs of many.

Environment

Most users will be accessing the web site through their homes, businesses and school. The site will be linked through the USD Financial Aid web site and the MySanDiego portal that is accessed by students every day.  The site will not have much animation or video, but there is a possibility for video tutorials in the future.  There may be links to PDF forms that are necessary to fill out.  Users that may want to print the information must have access to a printer at home or school.

Resources and Limitations

Because most of the content for this site has already been written and is available in a Word and PDF format, I will not have to write the majority of the text for the site.  I have already obtained permission from the Financial Aid administrators to create this site.  Being an employee of the Financial Aid department, the maintenance of the site can be incorporated as part of my job description.  It may even alleviate some obligations for the current web master.

General Solution

The creation of this web site will meet the need of many members of the University of San Diego community.  It will allow students and parents to access detailed financial aid information in a more easily readable format.  It will also allow financial aid administrators to provide up-to-date information more readily than reading a long, cumbersome document, which would have to be reprinted or reloaded on to the current web site.  It will also provide financial aid consumer information for prospective students and parents who are interested in obtaining a more in-depth understanding of financial aid during the college application process.