friday, january 23, 2004
the university daily kansan
news
9A
Meritscholar recruitment declines
By Courtney Kuhln
ckuhlen@kansan.com
Special to the Kansas
When Bill Cross, Kansas City, Mo., junior, was deciding where to go to college two main features made him consider the University of Kansas: it was close to home and was offering to pay nearly all his expenses.
"I had thought about it my whole life because I was a KU sports fan and my mom went to KU," said Cross, who is a Kansan science writer. "But getting national merit to come here essentially for free was really the deciding factor."
News Now.
That deciding factor is no longer what it once was for out-of-state scholars. The University changed the scholarship available for out-of-state students entering this fall. Instead of receiving full tuition and fees plus an additional housing allowance, this fall's merit scholars received a $10,000 renewable scholarship each year.
This change has complicated the scholarship decision of Cross' younger brother, who is also a National Merit Finalist and a senior in high school.
"I think he was pretty set on KU until he found out they changed the scholarship money," Cross said.
If this year's class of new merit scholars is an indicator, Cross' younger brother and other out-of-state merit scholars won't be coming to the University.
An average of 106 merit scholars per year had enrolled at the University since 2000, but this fall only 49 new scholars enrolled. The drop in numbers is because of fewer out-of-state students. While the University enrolled 65 out-of-state merit scholars last year, the University attracted only four this fall.
"Before it was very attractive for them to come to KU and have their tuition and fees covered," Lisa Pinamonti, director of admissions and scholarships, said.
Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, senior vice provost, said the administration and the Office of Admissions and Scholarships were not surprised by the low national merit numbers this year.
Those ramifications include losing ground in national rankings
"We made the decision jointly, and we knew the ramifications," she said.
The University was in the top 10 of public universities attracting merit scholars for four of the past five years. US News and World Report also uses the number of merit scholars as one factor in determining the top public universities.
In conjunction with breaking into the US News "Top 25 public universities". Chancellor Robert Hemenway announced in 1995 his goal of recruiting 100 merit scholars by the year 2000.
The University did not achieve
the chancellor's goal of being a top 25 public university, but did surpass his goal of recruiting merit scholars.
"We felt like we had declared victory and then decided we could move a lot more of our resources in-state." McCluskey-Fawcett said.
McCluskey-Fawcett said the administration made its decision to provide less money to out-of-state merit scholars in order to focus more money on Kansas students.
"We are trying to keep the best and brightest in the state," McCluskey-Fawcett said.
Pinamonti said she thought the administration re-evaluated the use of scholarship money because the University wasn't increasing the amount it had to award.
"It was a lot more expensive to offer renewable scholarships for out-of-state students," she said.
Pinamonti said the reason for this was that out-of-state tuition is more expensive, and will continue to grow with future tuition increases.
The total of the in-state package for National Merit Finalists is less than the $10,000 offered to out-ofstate students, even with tuition, fees and housing included.
Pinamonti said the change in the scholarship had affected the way the University's Office of Admissions and Scholarships recruits
Gail Sherron associate director of scholarships and admissions
"There are families out there that really cannot afford college. They will go only to those schools where you get the best package."
out-of-state merit scholars.
"We are still contacting them, but we focus now more on the Kansas students," she said.
Gail Sherron
Pinamonti said her office would like to increase the enrollment of Kansas merit scholars from the University's average of 45 to 50 to about 60 per year.
Despite the decreased award, Gail Sherron, associate director of scholarships and admissions, said there was still a consistent level of interest from out-of-state scholars. She said the final decision often came down to money available.
"There are families out there that really cannot afford college. They will go only to those schools where you get the best package," she said.
The change in available scholarship packages has shifted the University's recruiting attention away from out-of-state scholars.
"There is just no physical way
to spend enough attention on all 15,000 names we receive," Sherron said.
She said her office now focuses on the smaller pool of Kansas applicants. Doing so allows more personal contact with national merit recruits but less with those from other states.
Lainey Ahillen, St. Louis senior, said contact with University recruiters was one of the reasons she chose to come here.
"They mailed me a ridiculous amount of stuff and called me a lot," she said.
Ahillen said without the calls from recruiters, she would not have even thought about the University as one of her college options.
"Until I visited I was treating it as an afterthought, but then they wouldn't let me pass it up," Ahillen said.
She said she thought a decrease in recruiting out-of-state students would have as much of an impact on the school's numbers as changing the scholarship. She also said she held a realistic view of the school's emphasis on numbers.
"The chancellor wanted to go up in rankings, and I'm a good statistic," Ahillen. "They ran into budget trouble and it was an easy thing to cut."
Edited by Michelle Rodick
Kansas Memorial Union (785) 864.1271