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Kansas state universities would no longer require applicants to take specific high school courses as a condition of admission, under proposed regulations recently approved by the Kansas Board of Regents. The universities would instead rely primarily on applicants' grades and standardized test scores.
Board members said eliminating the course requirements would increase enrollment of Kansas high school graduates at state universities and colleges to 87 percent, according to minutes of the Sept. 18 board meeting, where the board unanimously approved the proposal. Full-time enrollment at Kansas state universities has been declining since 2010, according to Kansas Higher Education Enrollment Reports. Systemwide, the state experienced a 4.2 percent decrease in enrollment between 2018 and 2019, one of the largest declines in the country, a National Student Clearinghouse report found.
While Kansas high school students would no longer be required to complete chemistry and physics, they would still have to meet other science requirements to receive their diplomas. Under current requirements, students with scores of less than 22 out of 36 on the ACT college entrance exam also must take a fourth math course during their senior year. The proposed regulation removes that requirement.
The proposal still has to reviewed, but not approved, by state lawmakers and will be subject to a public comment period and possible revisions -- a process that can take up to a year -- but some education advocates are already voicing concern.
“The fear is that you will have students who will show up to college, not having taken courses necessary to prepare them for college work,” said Mark Tallman, associate executive director of advocacy and communications for the Kansas Association of School Boards. “That means more people needing remedial courses and more kids dropping out because they can’t handle it.”
Daniel Archer, vice president of academic affairs in the Board of Regents office, said the board took this step with the needs of first-generation college students in mind. These students are a growing segment of the state's college-bound population and were 21.5 percent of new state university students in 2016, according to the board's most recent enrollment data.
The standards will not affect students graduating high school in 2020, Matt Keith, a spokesman for the board, wrote in an email.
A Board of Regents task force recommended in 2017 that the curriculum requirements be removed because they deterred low-income, first-generation students from applying to the state's six public universities. Enrollment at these universities has dropped from 63,403 to 61,867 full-time undergraduate students since 2015, according to Kansas Higher Education Statistics.
Under the new standards, course credit is “recommended” and not “required” for students applying to any university within the Kansas system, including the University of Kansas and Kansas State. Kansas State and the University of Kansas will continue to require a higher grade point average for admission -- a minimum of 3.25 -- than the other four state institutions -- Emporia State, Pittsburg State, Fort Hays State and Wichita State Universities, which all require a GPA of 2.25.
Archer said the changes won’t lead to Kansas high school graduates missing courses that qualify them for college. Those courses will still be recommended, but not required, for students applying for admission at state universities, he said.
"There are some explicit requirements that students need to complete to attain a high school diploma -- there is a framework in place to make sure they’re still going to be taking classes that prepare them for college,” Archer said.
Some Kansas public school districts will be able to easily provide these “recommended” courses and will value more flexibility in the requirements, but there are some struggling districts in the state that would look to cut nonrequired courses for budgetary purposes, Tallman said. He also noted that science and math teachers are hard to come by.
“We know that for many districts, the regents’ requirement became the minimum of what they had to offer,” Tallman said. “Maintaining that can be difficult in parts of our state that struggle to get certain specialized teachers … There’s a real shortage. It’s being done, but it’s maybe more expensive, more difficult.”
The Board of Regents is also doing away with a policy that guarantees admission to high school students in the top one-third of their graduating class. That policy will be replaced with a 2.25 minimum GPA requirement for admission to Emporia State, Pittsburg State, Fort Hays State and Wichita State. Kansas State, which also admitted students in the top one-third of their graduating class, will now require a 3.25 minimum GPA. Students who don’t meet the minimum GPA could also be granted admission with a minimum ACT score of 21 out of 36. (Kansas State will require an ACT score of 24.)
GPA instead of class rank is a much more accurate and standardized way to judge students’ academic performance, Archer said.
The top one-third admissions standard was implemented before the board took over governance of the state's public institutions from the Kansas State Legislature in 2009.
Admissions officers at state universities will continue to have leeway to admit freshmen who do not meet the state’s guidelines, but the exceptions can’t surpass 10 percent of a state university’s first-year student population, Archer said. The exception will give students who are standouts in areas other than their GPA or ACT scores a chance to enroll in Kansas state institutions.
“This is about identifying a balance between access and success,” Archer said.
Wichita State faculty members reacted mostly positively to news of the proposed changes to the admissions requirements, said Jeffrey Jarman, president of the Faculty Senate. He said the changes were presented to faculty by the university's president, Andy Tompkins, at various meetings over the past few months.
“Over all, there were not major concerns, and many faculty saw it as a good way to provide access to students who deserve a good opportunity to get a college education,” Jarman said. “For us in particular, we are an urban-serving university, so our goal is to serve students in our surrounding community. This will make it easier for them.”
