Impact
career opportunities
Scholars Will Have Higher Lifetime Earnings
The benefits of a college education not only benefit individuals, but also support healthier and more sustainable communities. 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. College graduates are also healthier and more likely to volunteer and engage in their communities. KC Scholars provides an opportunity to break down systemic barriers and open the doors to sustainable career opportunities.
81% of KC Scholars are individuals of color
KC Scholars Represents Our Communities’ Diversity
KC Scholars knows how to help low- and moderate-income individuals earn college degrees and have awarded funding to over 6,000 scholars with extraordinary results with an over 90% persistence rate. The KC Scholars team is utilizing learnings from the last six years to help place 32,000 additional adults on career paths to $45,000 – $85,000 by 2032, with at least 20,000 of those individuals being adults of color from different socioeconomic backgrounds with KC Scholars’ new workforce credential program. 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 and set up to remain in the region.
SCHOLARS WILL BE COLLEGE READY
KC Scholars Provides More Than Just $$.
KC Scholars’ new credential workforce program producing a minimum 80% college completion rate due in part to KC Scholars’ wrap-around student support service model to ensure that Scholars are prepared to succeed in college, including college planning education and near-peer college advising. Scholars are participating in college planning activities at rates up to 27 percentage points higher 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 three or more colleges; submitting the FAFSA by the deadline to receive federal and state aid; and joining campus tours.
College funding helps KC Scholars keep student debts low and finish college at higher rates.