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KANSAN.COM
NEWS
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New KU scholarship GPA requirement proves difficult for some students to maintain
WILL WEBBER
@KansanNews
Eli Mitchell started his second semester of sophomore year in spring 2014 with a 3.8 GPA and was eligible for enough scholarship money to pay full tuition and even have some funds left over. But despite his early success at the University, he said he found it difficult to adjust.
"I was so stressed about not doing as well as I wanted to and had trouble getting out of bed," Mitchell said. "So I basically stopped going to classes that semester."
For some, like Mitchell, a strong start isn't always enough. Workload, stress or a host of other problems
can lower a good GPA in a single semester and cause students to lose their scholarships. In the 2013-14 school year, 858 students lost renewable scholarships for failing to meet academic requirements, said Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations for the University. Their scholarships ranged from $1,000 to $10,000.
In order to keep a scholarship all four years, the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships requires students to complete a minimum of 30 University hours each year and maintain a certain cumulative GPA. If students fail to meet these requirements, they are notified of their status and lose their scholarships.
When Mitchell dropped
out, the GPA requirement was a 3.25. This past summer, it was raised to a 3.4 for incoming students, which is the second-highest of all Big 12 schools. The median GPA requirement for renewable scholarships in the Big 12 is 3.0, while Kansas State has the highest at 3.5.
Matt Melvin, vice provost of enrollment management, said the University decided to set the GPA requirement at 3.4 with the understanding that performance of students on scholarship would be evaluated on a yearly basis. Currently, there are 2,322 freshmen and new transfer students on scholarship this year who must maintain a 3.4 GPA.
While it will take time to gather data from a four-year
cycle, Melvin says freshmen performance numbers serve as a good indicator of later performance.
"Positive academic momentum in the first year typically carries through to subsequent years, which is the reason we encourage students to get out of the blocks fast." Melvin said.
In the 2014-15 school year,674 freshmen alone failed to meet the 3.25 GPA requirement at the completion of their first year and were ineligible to receive their scholarships for this year. Numbers were not available for the other classes.
Had the new 3.4 GPA requirement been in effect, an additional 441 students in all grade levels would have lost their scholarships
Students who lose their scholarships can earn them back if they meet requirements in future semesters, Barcomb-Peterson said.
as well.
"Every dollar that is returned to Endowment is spent on students," she said. "It is possible that it may not be spent in that exact year — for instance, if a donor stipulates a nonrenewable scholarship for a student from the donor's home county and no student from that county is eligible in that given year. But it will be spent on students."
But for Mitchell, paying for future semesters of school without scholarship money was out of the question.
school teacher, and his dad is disabled and living with Mitchell's grandmother, so he said affordability was the biggest factor in his college decision.
"No school gave me as much money and made it as affordable and easy to go to school as KU," he said.
Mitchell's mom is a high
However, he said the University was no longer affordable.
Mitchell has since started a job he enjoys at the Granada Theater and continues to apply for scholarships, but he acknowledges how costly a slipping GPA can be.
"That's probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made — messing up that one semester," he said.
MARRIAGE FROM PAGE1
"I had never moved anywhere else, but I wanted to see Oregon. I moved out there with my brother for a little bit and lived with his family, then looked really hard for about five months for an internship and found one," Rachel said. "It happened to be in Texas and took some time to move there and kind of get my feet wet in a potential career path. [I] did that, and, at that point, after I had completed that internship, I felt a little bit homesick for Ben to be honest."
Now they're in the same state. But between teaching, working and taking classes, married graduate students have their fair share of obstacles. One of the biggest challenges is "sharing a car," Rachel joked.
Finding the time to manage it all can be tough, too.
Bien said graduate school is a 60-hour-a-week, sevent-day-a-week commitment,
which can be exhausting.
"Friday night is the closest thing we get to kind of like a date night, but some Fridays it's just like, 'I wanna go home and get a pizza and just do nothing,'" Ben said. "I think that it's just the time commitment. And you can lose yourself in your work."
Ben added: "For both of us, I think we've done a good job not doing that, but at the same time, we haven't gone on vacation since our honeymoon."
For Rachel, being able to rely on Ben has been important as she works through graduate school.
"I know that there have been times when I've really relied on you to pick up a lot of my slack in terms of you
know, like domestic responsibilities and contributing to a household," Rachel said to Ben. "There are times when it's just impossible because the work week is just really intense."
"And I did." Ben joked.
As Rachel is wrapping up her master's degree and Ben finishes his Ph.D., the two are planning their first vacation since their honeymoon.
While marital age is trending upward, some buck the trend
Markisha, 23, and Cliff Rangel, 21, got married last summer.
Markisha, a fifth-year senior at the University, said the couple knew they were young but thought marriage was the right choice. That doesn't mean it was easy, though.
She said she thought students had a generally negative perception of getting married in college.
"For the most part, I think that students think that it's dumb," she said. "I know a couple of my friends have been like, 'Well, why get married?' You guys are just in a relationship. You're in a relationship, and what's the rush to get married?"
The two tied the knot at
Being young doesn't put a strain on the couple's relationship, but juggling responsibilities can be a challenge. Markisha said.
"I wouldn't say that we haven't had time for each other, but we haven't really had time for each other with him working all the time and then me taking care of this one," she said looking at Angelo, her son, sleeping in her arms, "and doing school work, it's kind of busy, but it's still great."
the courthouse but invited so many friends and family members that the judge said they should have just thrown a wedding, Markisha recalled, laughing.
"We didn't want to make it a big deal, but we ended up inviting people, and then we were like, 'Oh if we tell this person, we have to tell this person, and we have to tell this person,'" Markisha said. "And so when we got there, it was funny because the judge was like, 'I was expecting there to be like two people,' and then she was like, 'You basically have a wedding. You should've just held it somewhere.'"
The two originally went to the courthouse to get their marriage license, but decided to get married instead. When Cliff called Markisha's grandfather to ask for her hand, her grandfather
was happy to give his blessing. When they told him they wanted to get married the following day, he was taken by surprise.
Independence can be a huge factor in whether students get married young, Markisha said. Markisha said being married young doesn't limit her from doing anything she wants. She is enrolled in online classes as she takes care of their newborn baby.
But trends say young people should make the most of their 20s and put off marriage. Many may ask why Markisha and Cliff married so young, but she said it was the right time for them.
"We knew that we wanted to spend our lives together anyway, so we were like, 'How about we just go ahead and do it?' And we just did it, went with it."
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