Impact
career opportunities
Scholars Will Have Higher Lifetime Earnings
According to College Board, those with a bachelor’s degree earn about $800,000 more over their lifetime than those without a college degree. This translates to $6.4 trillion in increased lifetime earnings for Scholars and their families. For some, KC Scholars is the opportunity to break a cycle of poverty and increase individual and career opportunities. College graduates are also healthier and more likely to volunteer and engage in their communities than are those without degrees. The benefits of a college education are significant.
81% of KC Scholars are individuals of color
KC Scholars Are Of All Races And Ethnicities
KC Scholars will produce a minimum of 15,000 college-educated and racially and ethnically diverse workers for our workforce by 2027, all of whom will be encouraged to remain in the region to live, work, and contribute. KC Scholars knows how to support low- and moderate-income individuals to earn college degrees and have awarded funding to over 6,000 scholars with extraordinary results, including an annual persistence rate of over 90%. The KC Scholars team is utilizing what they have learned over the last six years to reach 32,000 additional adults and help place them on a path to careers with earnings of $45,000 – $85,000 by 2032, with at least 20,000 of those individuals being adults of color from different socioeconomic backgrounds with our new workforce credential program.
SCHOLARS WILL BE COLLEGE READY
KC Scholars provides more than just $$.
The wrap-around student support service model ensures that Scholars are prepared to succeed in college, and our new credential workforce program producing a minimum 80% college completion rate. Because of the college planning education and near-peer college advising offered, Scholars are ready for college. Scholars are participating in college planning activities at rates up to 27 percentage points higher rates than their fellow, non-KC Scholar, students at the same high schools in the Kansas City region.
Activities include: meeting with their college adviser; taking college entrance tests (and scoring high); applying and being admitted
to 3 or more colleges; submitting the FAFSA by the deadline to receive federal and state aid; and campus tours.
Money for college should translate into low student debt load and high college completion rates. The renewable value of scholarships and 529 College Savings Accounts awarded in 2017 was near $2.6 million and those awarded in 2018 near $10 million and those awarded in 2019 had a renewable value of nearly $11.4 million and those awarded in 2020 had a renewable value of $15.5 million and those awarded in 2021 had a renewable value of $17.1 million and those awarded in 2022 had a renewable value of 14.6 million.