Provo High School student Luke Allen stood next to the car with a grin as shiny as its red paint.
He had just won the 2022 Hyundai Accent SE through the Keys to Success Program, which awards a car to one lucky student each year.
Allen was one of 20 students from around the state invited to attend the program’s car giveaway event earlier this month at the Gallivan Center. Each qualified to be there by using the Keys to Success app.
Allen, who starts his senior year in the fall, said he first heard about Keys to Success at school.
Students download the program’s app and take interest surveys, which guides them to universities, colleges or trade schools that match their goals.
They can also apply to colleges, for FAFSA and for $160 million in scholarships available through the app.
Every time they engage with the app, they earn points, which can be redeemed for prizes like Chick-fil-A, Flowrider or movie passes.
“There [are] just so many options,” Allen said.
The program is a private sector solution to a public concern: raising the rate of high school graduates who pursue some form of higher education.
National college enrollment totaled 15.9 million in 2020, a decline of 9.6% since peaking at 21 million in 2010, according to the Education Data Initiative.
In 2018, 46% percent of Utah high school graduates enroll in college the year after they get their diplomas, lower than the national first year enrollment rate of 66.7%, a report from the Utah System of Higher Education shows.
This is partially explained by the high number of students who serve missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but former commissioner of higher education Dave Buhler said in a 2019 interview that “many other students still aren’t finding their way to college that first year.”
That’s where Keys to Success comes in, rewarding students for setting and attaining higher education-related goals.
Erin Trenbeath-Murray is the vice president of Success in Education, the parent program for Keys to Success.
She said the majority of the funding for Keys to Success comes from private donations.
The Success in Education Foundation has sponsors such as Zions Bank, O.C. Tanner, Dominion Energy and others.
It oversees a total of five programs:
Keys to Success
Road to Success, which incentivizes reading for K-5 students.
Code to Success, which provides coding and web development resources for students interested in computer science.
Women Who Succeed, which connects girls with mentorship from professional women in a variety of fields.
Ken Garff Esports, which runs esports clubs in schools.
Connecting with students
Allen was the Key to Success Program’s grand prize winner, but he wasn’t the only student generously awarded during the school year.
Mallory Santa Cruz, director of programs for the Success in Education Foundation, said Keys to Success is in all of Utah’s 41 school districts across 234 high schools and over 110 middle schools.
This year marked the first time Keys to Success launched in middle schools since the program began in 2004, she said.
Santa Cruz said Keys to Success was smaller when it began, encompassing only 65 schools.
The program launched its app in 2018 and spent several years refining it through those 65 schools, she said. And thanks to that app, they’ve expanded statewide over the last 18 months.
Trenbeath-Murray said the Keys to Success app currently has about 101,000 downloads. Roughly 54,000 of those are high school students while about 8,700 are middle schoolers.
Santa Cruz added that they work “to stay very connected with students” and administrators, and hold quarterly focus groups to assess schools’ needs.
“A lot of the feedback that we receive [from students] is just that they really enjoy having [the program] in the palm of their hands,” she said. “Students love being able to have that resource on their own without having to necessarily go through another adult.”
‘They can do it on their own’
Going forward, Trenbeath-Murray said Keys to Success plans on strengthening its relationship with school districts in which it has a smaller presence.
She and other program leaders also have “some things in the works” with higher education institutions that will hopefully remove cost and accessibility barriers to college applications.
“The kids like [the app] because they can do it on their own,” Trenbeath-Murray said. “They’re independent, they’re technologically savvy, they’re comfortable with this, and especially for a low income kid or a first generation kid, they can explore this app and think about college without having the pressure of their family or the pressure of their friends around them.”
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