stlcatfan wrote: ↑February 26th, 2020, 11:25 pm
Hypeman wrote: ↑February 26th, 2020, 9:09 pm
I don’t disagree. Unfortunately KSU is spending its scholarship money on high income kids that don’t have need in an attempt to get better ACTs and better rankings. That tends to be the wealthy KC suburban kids. I’m not sure that ignoring western Kansas kids is the university’s mission, but that’s what it’s doing.
Can you explain to me how K-State is spending its scholarship money on wealthy suburban kids over small town middle class kids? I'm not disagreeing with you -- I just need to understand how this is happening. Say a kid gets a 30 on his/her ACT. Whether that kid is from Olpe or Overland Park, wouldn't they both receive the same academic scholarship from K-State or any other school? Or are you saying that K-State needs to put more scholarship money toward families with lower incomes so they can afford college? Of course, kids who come from poorer families qualify for more federal grants and loans, compared to kids from wealthy families.
The wealthy suburban kids have higher ACT scores because of the private tutoring and ability to afford multiple attempts at the test. That’s factual. Kids from wealthy families will take it 6-8 times, use a tutor, and ultimately get higher scores. As a result, most of k-states scholarship money goes to kids from high income families that don’t need scholarships and can afford the tuition. You can look that up. Furthermore, beyond a baseline ACT, kids don’t perform better in college. The conclusion in the academic world is that ACT beyond around a 24, only correlates with family socio-economics. As a result, some schools are dropping ACT entirely.
As of last year, KSU is directing its recruiting budget almost entirely to the KC suburbs. That makes some sense. But, KSU has also increased the ACT scores needed for scholarships which only helps the suburban kids where the resources for getting a higher ACT are more accessible. Most western Kansas high schools don’t have the tutoring and guidance counselors dedicated to ACT that the suburban students have,
As a result, KSU’s recruiting and scholarship money is going to the suburban kids and the western Kansas kids are being left out and the will need to get more loans and or work long hours while going to school.
I’m not making this up, I was in many meetings listening first hand to the shift in focus. The current administration hired an east coast consulting firm who said this is what you should do. The justification is it will potentially help rankings. But it goes agains the land grant mission.
This is very relevant to the comments I see in this thread. People saying they are priced out of KSU and and going to Fort Hayes or many of the other more affordable schools. Unfortunately the administration is saying they don’t want you anyway, unless you’ll buy football tickets of course.