Setting our sights on 2030

Dear colleagues,

Four years ago, we asked ourselves a question that had no easy answer: What does it mean to truly lead as a next-generation land-grant university? Thousands of faculty, staff, students, alumni, Extension partners and Kansans across all 105 counties answered the call and out of those conversations came Next-Gen K-State, launched in September 2023 as both a promise and a commitment.

Today, I'm writing to share the updated Next-Gen K-State Strategic Plan, which will take us through 2030. We have reached the planned halfway check-in point of this plan, a moment to look honestly at what the data tells us, adjust where warranted and set our sights higher where we've earned the right to do so.

What we've accomplished together

The evidence of our progress is real, and it belongs to all of you.

Enrollment reached 21,213 students, our highest total in a decade. Our six-year graduation rate climbed to 72%, and our four-year graduation rate already surpassed the goal we originally set for 2030. Research expenditures grew to $279.7 million, a 28% increase since FY23, with $195 million in faculty-initiated competitive awards. Our donor community raised a record $297 million in FY25, pushing us past $1.1 billion cumulatively, well ahead of pace toward our $2 billion goal. And since the plan began, we received $428 million in state funding, the largest amount in K-State's history, including more than $115 million for the Ag Innovation Initiative.

We also invested in the foundation beneath all of it: more than $205 million in facilities, $166 million of deferred maintenance eliminated and more than $19 million committed through the One K-State Fund to accelerate strategic initiatives. Forbes named us the No. 3 best employer in Kansas and the highest-ranked university in the state, recognition that reflects the culture you have built.

What has changed in the plan

When we launched Next-Gen K-State, several imperatives did not yet have clearly defined targets. We committed to establishing them as data became available. The updated plan does exactly that, and it makes three kinds of changes.

First, we raised targets where our momentum justified it. Our research goal shifts from $300 million to $350 million in annual expenditures and from $270 million to $300 million in faculty-initiated competitive awards. Our alternative credential goal grows from 5,000-7,000 learners to 10,000. Annual direct Extension educational contacts rose from 725,000 to 1.16 million. Our total learner goal moves from 30,000 to 36,200. These are not arbitrary stretches; they reflect what we have already demonstrated we can do.

Second, we added targets where we previously had none. For the first time, we are setting goals for community-engaged learners (3,200), new invention disclosures (80 per year), intellectual property licensing revenue ($3.5 million annually), degrees awarded by type, graduate employment and median earnings, statewide economic impact ($3.5 billion annually) and cumulative facilities investment ($700 million). Several of these measure something we said mattered from the beginning: not just what we produce internally, but the difference we make across Kansas.

Finally, we updated our narratives to reflect what we have learned and refined some of our Big Ideas and Key Initiatives to better identify the areas of success for the institution to focus on between now and 2030.

In some thematic areas, this meant changing course away from good ideas we had previously sought to prioritize, but realities prevented us from moving in that direction. In other areas, we have a much better sense of what works and more importantly, what does not work and have changed things accordingly.

What is left is a much more specific, accurate representation of what K-State is and seeks to be in the coming years, and I could not be happier that this institution continues to grow and strive for excellence.

What comes next

The second half of this plan is where strategy becomes habit. Colleges and major units previously completed strategic plans aligned to our university imperatives, and they will all need to be revisited against these updated narratives and metrics this fall. Where your unit's goals should rise with ours, raise them. Where a measure has proven to be the wrong measure, say so. This plan works only if it is a living document throughout the university, not a bound report on a shelf.

The full updated plan, including the complete measures of success, is available on the Next-Gen K-State website. I encourage you to read it and to bring your questions to your dean, vice president, or governance council representative, or directly to my university strategy officer and me.

I want to close with gratitude. None of what I described above was accomplished by a strategic plan. It was accomplished by faculty who chose the harder research question, staff who kept complicated systems running, advisors who caught a struggling student early, Extension agents in counties far from Manhattan, and donors and Kansans who decided this university was worth believing in.

We set out to prove that the land-grant model can evolve without losing what makes it essential. Three years in, the evidence says we can. The best is still ahead of us.

Together, as One K-State.

Go 'Cats!

Richard Linton
President