A Wichita State student senator is attempting to create a need-based scholarship for graduate and postdoctoral students from rural counties in the 1st congressional district of Kansas.
“The primary reason I focus on District 1 is that it is the largest section in Kansas; it makes up about two-thirds of the state, I believe,” Graduate Senator Grant Phillips said. “And two, it falls victim to many of the pitfalls of rural life, for example, education deserts or areas where there aren’t any schools or universities for students to attend.”
While the bill title refers to it as a higher education scholarship, it will only be eligible for graduate students.
“A big reason why I am targeting this one specifically is because of the disparity between graduate scholarship money and undergraduate scholarship money,” Phillips said. “Obviously, this isn’t going to rectify the problem completely, but in the numbers I’ve been crunching, the amount given to graduate students is not proportional to the graduate student population.”
Phillips said he personally called most of the counties in the district to ask about scholarships and found that they are “few and far between” and are largely limited to undergraduate students.
The bill states that over 3,000 graduate students, 19% of the student population, receive “$4 million, or 13% of total scholarship money… compared to $30 million for undergraduate students.”
Phillips said that he had yet to receive statistics about the number of graduate WSU students from District 1’s rural counties, but pointed to a statewide study by the University of Kansas that compiled data on educational attainment in Kansas by county.
But Phillips said this is “just the starting point,” and he can see this expanding to other districts in Kansas with higher rural populations, like congressional districts 3 and 4, in future sessions.
If the scholarship gets approved, applicants would have to verify they have completed a bachelor’s program with a GPA of at least 2.5 and provide proof of residence in District 1 by mailing address. Students already enrolled in a graduate program would need a 3.0 GPA, a minimum recipients would also need to maintain.
The scholarship would be funded through the student body president’s Budget, and the Student Government Association scholarship committee would select the recipients. The number of recipients and scholarship money have not yet been determined.
The bill was referred to the senate’s Government Oversight Committee. The Student Senate meets every week on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Meetings are open to the public and live streamed on SGA’s YouTube. Members of the public, including students, can speak in the public forum period at each meeting.
