Kansas University Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said KU would be focusing more time on raising its admissions standards in the coming year.

In remarks before Lawrence Rotarians, she said higher standards would help KU retain a higher percentage of students — one of her main goals for the university.

The Kansas Board of Regents will take up the issue in the coming months, Gray-Little said, and she hoped they would allow KU to develop new admissions standards.

When unprepared students are admitted to KU, they can be toxic, not only for the university, but also for themselves, Gray-Little said.

Currently, regents standards guarantee admission to Kansas high schoolers who complete any one of three requirements: an ACT score of 21 or higher, a rank in the top third of their high school class or a 2.0 GPA or higher in a set pre-college curriculum.

Kansas University Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little talks with members of the Lawrence Rotary Club as their guest speaker during a luncheon Monday at the Lawrence Holidome. Gray-Little answered questions and spoke about various issues surrounding the university, including fundraising and tuition increases.

In her travels throughout Kansas, she said she’s noticed that once you get past the middle part of the state and into the west, people begin to tell her that KU doesn’t recruit those areas as well.

At least not as well, as Gray-Little put it, as “another Kansas institution.” Western Kansas residents told her that those areas simply weren’t a KU part of the state.

“I’m not willing to concede that there’s any part of the state that’s not a KU part of the state,” Gray-Little said.

She acknowledged that new programs and efforts would cost money, and that’s why KU is preparing an important upcoming capital campaign.

While the official public phase of the campaign hasn’t yet been launched, she said that doesn’t mean that the effort to raise more private dollars hasn’t begun behind the scenes.

She also defended KU’s recent tuition increase proposals, saying they recovered only about half of the $42 million in budget cuts KU has taken from the state.

KU has had to trim about 300 employees — including filled and unfilled positions — about half of those in Lawrence, Gray-Little said.

“Those cuts don’t just hurt students, they also hurt the town, because fewer employees mean fewer customers,” she said.