Kansas City Scholars Program Expands Its Reach With $50 Million From Kauffman Foundation

The Kansas City Scholars program has added a new educational support program that will pay tuition for adults who enroll in short-term career training programs that prepare them for high-demand, high-paying jobs. The expansion has been supported by a $50 million grant made last fall by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

KC Scholars is a 501c3 formed in 2016 as an outgrowth of the former Kauffman Scholars program. The program’s goal is to increase the college completion rate and other types of postsecondary attainment for low- and modest-income students and adults across the six-county, bi-state region surrounding Kansas City. It now offers four different forms of financial assistance, each one supplemented with various student support services.

• The College Savings Match provides students in the ninth grade a one-to-one match on college savings of up to $1,000 and up to $400 in additional incentives during high school.
• Traditional Scholarships are aimed at 11th graders. These scholarships range up to $50,000 across five years of support for students working toward a two or four-year degree at one of the 17 schools in the KC Scholars Postsecondary network.
• Adult Learners Scholarships provide adults, 18 years or older, up to $50,000 in scholarship support, also for five years, toward a two or four-year degree at any of the schools in the KC Scholars Postsecondary network.
• Great Jobs KC is the new program that will pay for high school seniors and adult learners to participate in approved short-term career training programs.

The overall success of the the three original scholarship programs has grown dramatically in the past seven years. For example:

• more than 6,000 students, representing 103 area high schools, have received financial aid awards;
• of the recipients, 81% are individuals of color and 77% are first-generation-to-college students;
• among those high school graduates receiving one of the traditional scholarships, more than 90% have persisted toward their college degree.

Great Jobs KC was launched under the direction of Earl Martin Phalen, CEO of KC Scholars. It’s off to a strong start as well. Since its rollout late last year, it’s already received more than 900 applications and enrolled 470 participants, more than three-quarters of whom are racial/ethnic minorities. To date, 86 individuals have completed a training program.

The program focuses on careers that don’t require a college education but are in high demand in the Kansas City area such as health care, information technology, construction, and manufacturing.

In addition to financial support, it offers a comprehensive suite of wrap-around services to participants, including career advising, help in finding and enrolling in approved training programs, and the assistance of what is called a “scholar advocate” who advises each participant through the first year of employment. (In fact, a scholar advocate is paired with every recipient of a KC Scholars scholarship.)

Great Jobs KC also helps participants find support for affordable childcare and reliable transportation, two frequent barriers to the successful completion of education and career training.

Angie Bessendorfer, the Executive Vice President at KC Scholars, told me recently that the new program is particularly significant because it “opens new doors for the thousands of people in our region who want great careers but who, for a variety of reasons, don’t want to go to college. Now we can offer the guidance and financial support they need. We’re answering a call that we hear more and more often – both from employers and job seekers.”

Over the next decade, Great Jobs KC aims to enroll as many as 50,000 participants, and it projects that enough will complete their training to result in 32,000 additional individuals starting careers with expected annual earnings of $45,000 – $85,000.

“The Kauffman Foundation has long understood that there are multiple pathways beyond high school for people to achieve the success they want and deserve,” said Aaron North, Kauffman Foundation’s Vice President of Education at the time of the foundation’s $50 million grant. “Our grants are designed to support the region with common-sense alternatives in addition to robust support for two-year and four-year degrees. The KC Scholars grant will shape and catapult the region’s workforce preparedness for many years to come.”