LJWorld.com

admireed (Anonymous) says…

Ft Hays Pres first name is Ed

dweezil222 (Anonymous) says…

I didn't know the regents requirement bars admission of homeschooled students. I could foresee a potential constitutional challenge on that aspect.

geniusmannumber1 (Anonymous) says…

Limiting the opportunities of intelligent students because of concerns about their social life is asinine. Are you kidding me? This is especially true in Kansas, given the poor quality of education in many rural areas.

And seriously, can we just start putting admissions standards in quotes? Like “admissions standards”? Because the current standards really only prohibit high school dropouts from attending. They don't have any correlation of whether the student is prepared for college.

Confrontation (Anonymous) says…

I think they should be more concerned with kids who attend schools in KC or other large cities. Many of those schools inflate the grades just to get the kids out of there. You have 4.0 students who fail in college since their high school standards were so low.

LJD230 (Anonymous) says…

The value of a college degree is diminishing. It makes NO financial sense for Kansas to continue support for so many four year universities and colleges. Perhaps it would be well to close all but K State and KU, incorporate programs at the closed institutions —without duplication—into the two major research universities—and raise the admission standards for K State and KU dramatically. For those kids that don't measure up, triage them to the various junior colleges in preparation for a rigorous education at KU and K State.

It might not hurt for the administrations at both K State and KU to get off their collective duffs and begin an intense marketing campaign to attract out of state students for study at K State and KU. Such an effort would certainly help contain the continuing tuition creep in Kansas higher education.

Although this sounds draconian it is necessary if K State and KU wish to obtain status as REAL national and international research universities

dweezil222 (Anonymous) says…

Just out of curiosity, what programs exist at wsu/esu/fhsu/psu that don't already exist at either KU or K-State?

penguin (Anonymous) says…

I think that some of the same programs exist, but are not nearly as good. The best examples would be the ESU's teaching programs-KU is good, but ESU is often recognized as one of the top programs in the country. Also FHSU's graphic design program is far and away one of the best in the region and country. Also I think PSU has some sort of wood polymer program…I am not too familiar with it.

However, the one thing that each of these schools has is lower tuition. KU and KSU have tuition levels that are just out of the price range of many Kansas families. KU's tuition and fees for next year is 3299.75 for 15 credit hours compare that to the regionals wsu $2402 psu $2030 esu $1963 fhsu $ 1677.75

This also in no way accounts for housing, food, and other cost of living issue that are definitely not as high in Hays, Emporia or Pittsburg as they are in Lawrence or Manhattan (Wichita is the outlier in most of the cost issues).

Shutting down these schools will not improve KU and KSU. All they do is ensure that students and families in Kansas will be bled dry if they want a university degree. I can also guarantee that the elimination of these schools will not make the legislature want to fund these two mega-universities at the same level they have been funding the Regents system.

Also the Regents system has 83,701 students (as of Spring 2008), which is a combination of on-campus students and virtual students. So take just the on campus students and you have 73,096. In a world where KU and KSU split these students evenly they have close to 36,500 on each campus. Looking at their current on-campus enrollment of KU 23,531 and KSU 18,807 and a problem becomes apparent. This would require a huge building boom in both communities to handle these new students. Can you even imagine a sudden influx of that many more students in Lawrence?

Of course, this would probably not be what would happen. The point is that there is no reason the regionals should shutdown. The benefits would not be as great as one might think

penguin (Anonymous) says…

Oh one last thing….

The only reason why KU is pushing this so hard is that the weak qualified admissions standards hurt their USNWR rankings. The admissions standards do figure into their rankings and it is hard to climb into say the top 25 when your university is pretty easy to enter. So when you hear that the Provost is pushing for higher entrance standards…these rankings are first and foremost in their minds.

However, I do not disagree that they should be allowed to jump their standards without others being forced to follow along. They were able give universities tuition ownership so why not give them admissions standards ownership?

LJD230 (Anonymous) says…

“The point is that there is no reason the regionals should shutdown. The benefits would not be as great as one might think.”

The benefits are obvious: more money to improve and expand infrastructure, more money for state sponsored scholarships, better faculty salaries and a competitive edge in the intellectual global economy. In short, the ideals of the academy must be restored. The current inventory of schools only makes common what was once a prized achievement: a baccalaureate degree.

If one accepts the argument that the value, i.e., the return on investment—both economic and intellectual —of undergraduate degrees is diminishing rapidly it makes sense to me to NOT increase the community size at either KU or KSU but to maintain current levels with higher admission standards and a more diverse mix of in-state and non-Kansas kids. qualified(that is the point) Kansas kids deserve the opportunity to study in state and rub elbows and world views with kids from a wide and diverse geographic base. This should help abate the tuition creep now being experienced by Kansas families and the kids education might have added value.

If KU and KSU want to be recognized as true national universites, they must—and this is an imperative—recruit nationally. And if they don't know how to proceed in this effort, maybe they should ask Bill Self or Lew Perkins.

penguin (Anonymous) says…

Anyone who thinks that the Kansas Legislature would fund two big universities at the same level they currently fund 6 …is well more hopeful than I could ever be. Sounds like the same argument that I heard from KU administrators that told me and other students that if they just increased our tuition the Legislature would kick in so much more money.

Also these universities serve a purpose in the area they are located. They provide jobs and a small economic growth engine for the area. I am not sure how hard hit Wichita would be, but I am guessing Emporia, Pittsburg, and Hays would be devastated by such a move.

Regardless of these issues is the problem it creates in other areas. If there is no plan to increase enrollments than the only way to keep tuition down is to displace Kansas students with Out of State students. Again good luck selling this plan to people in Topeka.

This pain would also trickle down to other areas of the state. Most noteworthy would be K-12. Eliminating these colleges would deal a hard blow to the education of future teachers for the state of Kansas. We already have a looming teachers shortage that cannot be handled by the current system. Eliminating these four schools (especially ESU) would set this process further back.

Again, KU has been banging the drum for increased admissions standards….I say let them have them. As someone who has made it through KU during open admissions, I feel that this would possibly help their rankings. However, eliminating other universities will not benefit KU and KSU. In my experience eliminating the need for funding in one area will not drive the Legislature to fund two mega-universities that would have led to the demise of three different communities in Kansas