6A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
MONDAY,AUGUST 16,2004
University helps to ensure students 'Graduate in 4'
BY ANNIE McENNODE
correspondent@kansan.com
SPECIAL TO THE KANANI
Brandy Hildreth is finally done with college.
After six years at the University of Kansas, Hildreth graduated with degrees in English and journalism in May.
Although she says she would have lied to finish in four years, taking longer was the norm among students she knew.
"I don't know a single person I've hung out with at KU or was friends with that graduated in four years," she said. "I can't think of a single person."
Nationwide, only 37 percent of first-time freshmen in four-year bachelor's degree programs finish in four years, according to a May 2004 report by The Education Trust.
At KU, the figure is even lower. Of the class of first-time freshmen that entered in the fall of 1999, only 30 percent graduated within four years. Based on most recent available data, the University's four-
year rate places a mediocre seventh within the Big 12 Conference. It also ranks behind Pittsburg State University and Fort Hays State University within the state.
Tammara Durham, director of the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center, said lagging graduation rates can pose a threat to a University's reputation. Prospective students and ratings systems both scrutinize the figures as indicators of an institution's quality.
Durham said reasons for students prolonging their course of study can range from indecision about a major to a family crisis. But regardless of what setbacks students may encounter later, her office is encouraging all students to plan on earning a degree in four years.
This summer, incoming students are receiving the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center's latest edition of its "Graduate in 4" booklet. The center provides all new students with the newly streamlined publication during their freshman orientation sessions. The title of the booklet alone
sends a strong message, Durham said.
"When we give them the Grad(uate) in 4 book, it's clear what we want them to do," she said.
The booklet has existed in bulkier forms since 2001. It contains a section called "Four Steps to Graduating in Four Years," tips for choosing a major, and a checklist of objectives to complete in each of a student's four years. A four-year plan worksheet provides space for students to map out their curriculum for each semester.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Regents took aim at low graduation rates in its Vision 2020 plan for the University. It lists as part of its second initiative to "reduce the time required to graduate for undergraduates" through improving academic support.
"Graduate in 4" is part of a further-reaching effort to bolster the University's four-year graduation rate.
A progress report on the initiative cites use of the Academic Requirements Tracking System, or ARTS, form since 1998 and the
establishment of the University's Student Writing Center the same year as other steps towards improving graduation rates.
In addition to publishing "Graduate in 4", the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center has expanded its offices in Strong Hall to accommodate a larger staff of about 20 advisors who help students to formulate course schedules, select majors, and discuss career options.
According to Rachel Fredrickson, a fifth year senior from Lawrence, improved academic advising for undergraduates is long overdue.
Fredrickson came to the University of Kansas in 2001 convinced that industrial design was the perfect program for her interests. But after three years of whitting away at the School of Fine Arts' requirements, Fredrickson realized that a business degree might provide her with more career opportunities. She transferred into the School of Business, where much of her coursework no longer applied toward her degree.
If she had received better information about the careers an industrial design degree could lead to, she says, she could have saved time and money.
and money.
"You feel like you're wasting some years, doing something you're not going to finish," Fredrickson said. "It's like, 'How many thousands of dollars and how much time did I just waste?'
Fredrickson's parents established a college fund to pay for her tuition before she came to the University. But the fund was only meant to cover four years of school. Now she relies on her job at the University Bookstore, where she works about 20 hours per week, to help her make up the difference.
ference. Hildreth, too, worked about 20 hours per week at the Clinton Lake Wildlife Area during her time in college. Still, earning enough money to pay for the average of 15 hours per semester needed to graduate in four years was not always manageable.
manageable
"There were a couple of semesters where I was running out of
money, so I had to cut back on hours to work more," Hildreth said.
Tuition hikes during her final years at KU didn't help matters
"I might have been able to finish up quicker, but as the tuition increased I had to work more," she said.
With so many factors forcing students to prolong their studies, Mary Andrade, assistant director of University Career Services, said taking longer than four years to graduate wasn't necessarily a big deal.
"If (students) are taking an extra semester, I don't think that's a problem," she said. "If they're taking an extra year, I don't think that's a problem."
Her office also offers students a four-year plan called "Your Career and Academic Pathway." The pamphlet advises students to gain experience in a prospective career after exploring their interests and learning about various professions during their freshman and sophomore years.
Nine students oppose tuition law, seek relief in court
Edited by Steve Schmidt
Chris Heath, Monterey, Calif., senior, is one of the plaintiffs using the state for injunctive relief against the Kansas House bill that allows some undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition. Heath, who will be starting his third year paying out-of-state tuition, said he thought the bill was unfair.
BY JAY SENTER
jsenter@kansan.com
KANSAN START WRITER
When Christopher Heath saw an advertisement last spring seeking plaintiffs for a suit challenging a Kansas law that allows some undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition, he decided to make a phone call.
Heath, a 22-year-old who transferred to the University of Kansas from a small school in Salinas, Calif., has lived in the state for two years and owns a home in Lawrence, but he has been denied Kansas residency on multiple occasions. Why, Heath thought, should illegal immigrants be given a better tuition rate than a citizen of the United States?
Courtney Kuhlen/KANSAN
Heath contacted the Federation for American Immigrant Reform (FAIR), the organization that ran the advertisement, got details on the case and signed on. He is now one of nine University of Kansas students who are suing the state for injunctive relief against Kansas House Bill 2145, which allows any student who attended a Kansas high school for at least three years, and who graduated from a Kansas high school or received a GED from
the state, to pay in-state tuition at Kansas universities regardless of residency status.
But, Heath said, his motivation for joining the suit was not based on a particular dislike for immigrants. Rather, Heath wanted to lower his own tuition bill.
"To be honest, I thought that most of all it would be nice to get all of the tuition money back," Heath said. "I don't care too much about the immigrants getting in-state tuition. The kids who qualify have obviously lived here for a while — you can't become fluent in English if you have only been here for three years. But don't make me pay out of state. Make everyone pay the same."
That view somewhat conflicts with the ideology of the organization that spearheaded the suit. Unlike Heath, FAIR vocally denounces the prospect of allowing illegal immigrants to receive any benefits, no matter how long they have been in the United States.
Susan Tully, FAIR's Midwest field director, and one of the lead organizers of the iawsuit, said FAIR wanted to see the law overturned, and was not sympathetic to the plight of immigrant students who had been brought to
the United States as children by their parents.
"Just because their parents broke the law does not give them the right to think that they can stay here and continue to break the law," Tully said. "They need to go back to their homeland and file the appropriate papers to come here legally, or they need to attend universities in their homeland, whatever that is — whether it's China or Russia or Mexico, I don't really care."
Melinda Lewis, the policy director of El Centro, a Kansas City, Kan., non-profit organization that played a significant role in drafting the Kansas law, said she believed many of the students joined the suit because they wanted education finance reform, not because they held anti-immigrant views.
"Ive read the stories of some of the plaintiffs who are working hard and who are struggling to pay for college," Lewis said. "And I think that those things are very real, but I do not think that in any way they are the fault of immigrant students, who in many ways are struggling right along with the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are, I believe, unwitting pawns in a larger goal of this extreme anti-immigrant group to try to create an environment of
fairly radical immigrant views."
The case has received significant media attention since being filed July 19, largely because the attorney who brought the case on behalf of FAIR was Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor and Republican candidate for Kansas' third district Congress
sional seat. Kobach has made immigration reform a priority in his campaign thus far, and has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, a Fox News Channel talk show, to discuss the issue. Kobach could not be reached for comment.
On July 21, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline removed
himself from defense of the case, saying that his belief in strong immigration law presented a conflict of interest.
Tully said she was waiting to hear from FAIR's attorneys about the state's response to the suit in the wake of Kline's recusal.
Edited by Bill Cross
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