Kansas State University

Objective

The Financial Aid and Scholarship Task Force will play a key role in the successful implementation of K-State’s strategic goal to adopt a disciplined approach to institutional financial aid and scholarships that balances enrollment and student success goals. The Task Force will assist in the design of an institutional aid strategy that meets market expectations and aligns with institutional enrollment priorities. The Task Force will review price elasticity and aid optimization analyses that explore the tradeoffs between student headcount, profile, student success, and net tuition revenue. The Task Force will present recommendations to the SEM Plan Governance Committee focused on becoming more efficient and thoughtful in the use of scarce financial resources to achieve institutional goals:

• ensuring that students receive aid packages that meet student needs while safeguarding limited funds
• becoming more process-oriented to integrate data-driven decisions in the financial aid process
• maintaining the University’s competitive financial aid position vis-à-vis an increasingly competitive field, and
• determining the use of College-Based endowment funds in achieving K-State enrollment and retention goals.

Membership

Objective

The Out-of-State Recruitment Task Force will play a key role in advancing the work of K-State’s SEM Plan by prioritizing and acting on the out-of-state marketing and recruitment strategies and ultimately supporting K-State’s strategic goal to increase the percentage of non-resident, students at all levels. The Task Force will assist in identifying appropriate non-resident student markets and assess whether current recruitment tactics and marketing messages are optimized to attract students who are a good fit with K-State. The Task Force will develop recommendations for reaching and engaging non-resident students in order to regain, stabilize, and grow KSU’s out-of-state freshmen population to 20% of the freshmen class in five years.

Membership

Objective

The Marketing and Communications Task Force will play a key role in the successful implementation of K-State’s strategic goal to design a unified prospective student brand and marketing messaging strategy across the university and all student segments. The Task Force will develop a sophisticated marketing approach, targeting specific geographic areas and student demographics, and deliver a more customized student messaging experience to grow a larger applicant pool. While current student marketing tends to be a one-size-fits-all approach, K-State must market itself to attract a more diverse audience and allocate resources to develop a stronger digital presence to help penetrate less traditional, more modern markets.

Membership

Objective

The Transfer Student Task Force will play a key role in the successful implementation of K-State’s strategic goal to increase the number of students transferring to K-State through enhanced outreach efforts, streamlined onboarding and targeted support services. The Task Force will assist in examining the current approach to the recruitment and retention of transfer student markets and assess whether current recruitment tactics and student services are optimized to attract and retain transfer students who are a good fit with K-State. The Task Force will begin with a focus on developing recommendations for reaching and engaging transfer students to regain, stabilize, and grow KSU’s transfer cohort back above 1,000 students by 2023 (4% annually).

Membership 

Objective

The Student Success Task Force will play a key role in the successful implementation of K-State’s strategic goals to increase retention and graduation rates. The Task Force will assist in designing a strategy to improve coordination, collaboration, and communication around retention and student success and remove barriers or adjust policies that negatively impact student progression, retention, and overall success. This task force will recognize the integration of the entire Student Lifecycle and the interrelationship of seating a class and graduating a class. The Task Force will identify specific groups of students who we know today are “at-risk” (or expected to be “at-risk” upon enrollment) and mitigate attrition by designing intervention strategies, targeted support services and wrap-around services to improve cohort retention and 4-year and 6-year graduation rates and to position KSU to meet and exceed peer averages.

Membership

Objective

The Graduate, Global, and International Students Task Force will play a key role in the successful implementation of K-State’s strategic goals to define the role of the Global Campus and Graduate School within the K-State System and to address and improve enrollments of international students at all levels. The Task Force will assist in the development of governance structures for online and graduate education and define how academic program development and enrollment growth goals should be integrated into the University’s comprehensive enrollment management strategy, and to develop a long-term strategy for international student enrollment. This Task Force will involve key stakeholders and leadership (central and college-based) to determine how and where the Global Campus, the Graduate School, Olathe and Polytechnic can grow, and the role increasing International student enrollment might play. The Task Force will recommend the appropriate organizational structure for the Global Campus and Graduate School enrollment operations, informed by a well-defined governance structure and program capacity. The Task Force will provide a framework to support the launch of new academic programs (Academic Incubator) and inform the extent to which internal capabilities need to be built out. The Task Force will ensure success by establishing a set of performance metrics for each academic program.

Membership

Objective

The Enrollment Data, Technology and Systems Task Force will work to deploy a centralized prospective student CRM to foster collaboration university-wide in the recruitment and enrollment of students. The Task Force will also work to ensure the universal adoption of the Student Success Collaborative which will enable faculty and staff to utilize data to holistically support students and have informed interventions as students’ progress through K-State. Working with the other SEM task forces, the Task Force will also identify and define the key recruitment and retention metrics and an accompanying reporting process that will support data driven decision-making and optimize enrollment operations. The Task Force will then present options or recommendations to the SEM Implementation Team for approval. It is expected that the Task Force will establish specific project teams as needed to support the key activities listed below.

Membership

Objective

The Student Working Group (including undergraduate, graduate, and global students from across a broad cross-section of student cohorts served by our campuses) will provide insights on the processes that lead to enrollment at K-State and the issues and key milestones throughout the student experience. The priority of this Working Group will be to reflect on members’ own experiences enrolling and attending K-State. The Student Advisory Working Group will be presented information and asked to review proposals from the SEM Implementation Team as well as the SEM Task Forces to provide feedback and recommendations regarding impact on the student life cycle at K-State. In addition, members of the Student Advisory Working Group will serve as liaisons to the Out-of-State Recruitment; Marketing and Communications; Transfer Student; Graduate, Global, and International; Student Success; and Enrollment Data, Technology, and Systems Task Forces.

Membership