Southwest Kansas ? Erick Schmidt knows why he wants to come to Lawrence for college: It’s not Liberal.

“Lawrence is a big town to us,” the Liberal High School senior said. “This is a cowboy town. People think I’ve got my cow parked out front.”

For many students in western Kansas, the lure of Kansas University is nothing more than the lure of going to any college town — the bars, the music, the sports. For that reason, recruiting some can be easy.

KU recruits out west

But with so many small towns in the western half of the state, KU’s two admissions representatives there give a lot of presentations to small groups of students.

The 46 Kansas counties west of Great Bend comprise about 6 percent of KU’s in-state enrollment, and 4 percent of its total enrollment. There are 1,067 students at KU from those counties.

Johnson County has 6,853 students at KU. That’s 37 percent of its in-state enrollment or 26 percent of its total enrollment.

KU administrators have noted during the recent budget crunch that students from outside Kansas help subsidize in-state students’ education.

Even so, David Burge, interim associate director of admissions and scholarships, said KU would remain committed to recruiting students from all parts of the state. After all, he said, it’s part of the school’s mission.

“We always will recruit in Kansas,” he said. “We want students to know the University of Kansas is important to them. We try to be visible in Kansas, but we have to find a balance.”

The majority of students attending college from western Kansas opt to attend one of the many community colleges in that part of the state. But for those looking to get farther away for college, the options are usually KU and Kansas State University.

That was apparent during a swing through western Kansas two weeks ago by Brett Hathaway, one of KU’s western Kansas representatives.

Seniors weigh options

Dustin Volz, a senior at Dodge City High School, was still trying to decide between KU and KSU. His mother attended KU, which had him leaning in that direction. And he has liked the fraternity parties he has attended there.

“I want to get out of Dodge City,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to go to school in the same place I grew up.”

Family background also was strong for Beth Crotty, a senior at Garden City High School. She has a 4.0 GPA, attended Kansas Regents Honors Academy last year and ranks fourth in her class of 336.

But after her scholarship application was rejected, she’s wondering if KU is the right choice to pursue her goal of being an ophthalmologist.

“I want to go to KU, but I’m just bothered by this,” she said.

Her friend, Amy Conway, also is a senior. Conway has personal ties to a university — KSU, where many of her family members went and her parents have season tickets to football games.

She was offered a full-ride scholarship to play softball at Dodge City Community College but turned it down. She was ready to leave that part of the state.

“I’m excited about the bigger city atmosphere,” she said. “In Garden City, there’s not much to do. The shopping’s going to be a lot better.”

In Liberal, senior Thao Nguyen still is trying to decide what she’ll do this fall. She’d like to go to KU’s pre-medicine program, but she’s waiting on her scholarship letter to arrive to decide if she can afford it. Her parents work at a meat-packing plant in town.

“If we can get enough money, I’ll be at KU this fall,” she said. “Otherwise, I might end up going to Seward County (Community College) for a year or two.”

Mason Bennett, a senior from Copeland who attends South Gray High School in Montezuma, is still trying to decide between Emporia State University and KU to study music education. If ESU offers him a big scholarship, he’ll probably go there.

Bennett said he was somewhat intimidated by the thought of having 900 students in a class at KU.

“That’s, like, three times the size of my town,” he said.

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