Project Budget

This is my first and rough budget breakdown. For now, all I know is that I need people who can help organize a curriculum of the program and create about 20 online courses in two years. I also need people to help with enrollment process and people who will mentor/grade students once the program starts. Please note that I’m planning to cap the enrollment number to 100 students for the first two years. Then the program goes well, we can gradually increase the enrollment size and eventually to complete open enrollment.

Budget for the first two years

• Project Director (1 Full-Time) $75,000
• Sr. Instructional Designer (2 Full-Time) $65,000 x 2 = $130,000
• Jr. Instructional Designer (6 Part-Time) $18,720 x 6 = $112,320
• Student Mentor/Grader (6 Part-Time) $18,720 x 6 = $112,320 (*16 students per mentor)
• Enrollment Manager (1 Full-Time) $55,000
• Enrollment Assistant (1 Part-Time) $15,600

Yearly Salary Total: $499,920 * 2 = $999,840

I probably need to budget for software, computer, server, benefits cost for the full-time employees, building fees, etc…, but I don’t exactly know how much these items cost. So, for now, I will not include the breakdown of the cost. Also, we are charging tuition for the students who want to enroll to the program. That will give us:

Student Tuition $2,700 * 100 = $270,000 a year, and in two years = $540,000

So, just looking at salary (which I believe where the majority of the expenses go), I need to request someone to fund us bout $459,840 in two years. But, of course, there are other expenses that I didn’t include, so let’s say we ask $1,000,000 for the first two years.

Thoughts on maintenance

Now good news is that once we complete all courses and standardize our enrollment process, we can increase our enrollment number. So, if we have 300 people enroll to the program:

Student Tuition $2,700 * 300 = $810,000 a year

And I believe the maintenance team budge for 300 students will look like this:

• Project Director (1 Full-Time) $75,000
• Sr. Instructional Designer (1 Full-Time) $65,000
• Jr. Instructional Designer (3 Part-Time) $18,720 x 5 = $56,160
• Student Mentor/Grader (18 Part-Time) $18,720 x 18 = $336,960 (*16 students per mentor)
• Enrollment Manager (1 Full-Time) $55,000
• Enrollment Assistant (4 Part-Time) $15,600 * 4 = $62,400

Yearly Salary Total: $650,520

That means that we have $810,000 from tuition and it cost $650,520 to maintain the program, so we will have $159,480 as a leftover!

Well, this is a really optimistic calculation, but I’m pretty sure that as we increase the number of enrollment, we will become more capable of sustaining the program without relying on external funds! (And I hope I’m right about this…, and I really think paying $2,700 a year for a master's degree from BYU is a way way waaaaaaaaaay and supeeeeeeeer deal.)