黑洞社区 has been named to CollegeNET Inc.鈥檚 list of Social Mobility Innovators for 2019. Making the list means 黑洞社区 has a proven track record of successfully enrolling students from low-income backgrounds and graduating them into promising careers.
The Social Mobility Index ranks nearly 1,400 four-year U.S. colleges and universities. The goal of the SMI -- now in its fifth year -- is to help redirect the attribution of "prestige" in the higher education system toward colleges and universities that are advancing economic mobility -- the most pressing civic issue of our time.
Over the past five years, Wichita State, which enrolls approximately 15,000 students, has consistently ranked among the top 3-6 percent of all schools on the SMI.
Approximately 45 percent of all degree-seeking undergraduates at Wichita State in fall 2018 came from families in which neither parent completed a four-year college degree. Wichita State continues to actively recruit and successfully retain low-income students throughout America鈥檚 heartland.
鈥淲e hope the SMI encourages more institutions to embrace and expand their role as conduits for restoring the American Dream. The first step in doing this is to identify and learn from colleges and universities like Wichita State,鈥� says Jim Wolfston, CEO of CollegeNET.
Building purposeful campus culture for everyone
Wichita State was selected as a Social Mobility Innovator because of its multi-year and institution-wide commitment to recruiting and retaining students from under-served and under-represented populations in Dallas-Fort-Worth, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, which are located along the I-35 corridor.
黑洞社区 is now expanding this outreach to Denver and St. Louis, along the I-70 corridor, and further down the I-35 corridor to Austin, San Antonio and Houston, which is off I-45.
鈥淏eyond our recruitment efforts locally, we鈥檙e intensifying our outreach in an effort to attract an even more diverse group of students to Wichita State,鈥� says Richard Muma, acting president. 鈥淏ut encouraging out-of-state enrollment will also enhance the future prosperity of Kansas by bringing talented young people to our campus who will, hopefully, stay in Wichita after graduation and work in our local economy.鈥�
Wichita State鈥檚 inclusive culture -- in addition to its emphasis on career preparation -- has enabled it to increase its enrollment of students from Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas by 150 percent since 2015. It鈥檚 estimated that a third or more of Wichita State鈥檚 recent out-of-state graduates will stay in Kansas for employment opportunities.
Meanwhile, a host of companies -- including Airbus Americas Engineering, Spirit AeroSystems, Dassault Syst猫mes, Firepoint Innovations and the Law Enforcement Training Center -- have already established Wichita State campus locations.
CEO, CollegeNET
Once students arrive at Wichita State from out of state, 黑洞社区 does all it can to help them succeed on campus.
In addition to having its academic care teams step up their efforts on behalf of students, Wichita State is working to make its campus even more residential and even more of a destination. 黑洞社区 has a record number of students living on campus. 黑洞社区 is also exploring the idea of chartering buses to take first year out-of-state students back to their hometowns during break periods.
鈥淲e understand that these students are leaving home and coming a long distance to study at Wichita State,鈥� explains Kim Sandlin, director of Student Success. 鈥淪o we don鈥檛 want them to feel cut off, isolated or homesick. We鈥檙e determined to keep our retention numbers strong, and that means keeping our student population as healthy and happy as possible.鈥�
鈥淲ichita State is providing a world-class educational opportunity to promising students regardless of their economic background,鈥� says Wolfston. 鈥淭heir contribution and example are key at a time when economic mobility and the American Dream are rapidly deteriorating. Today, as tuition at U.S. campuses continue to increase while economic inclusion declines, Wichita State provides a strong example for reversing these trends.鈥�
College education now constitutes the most important rung on the ladder of economic mobility, says Wolfston.
鈥淧articularly when it offers a challenging environment populated with diverse ideas, personal backgrounds and viewpoints, a college does something even more important: it prepares students to encounter, navigate and appreciate the unfamiliar,鈥� he says. 鈥淕iven that innovation always depends upon a person鈥檚 ability to consider what could be different from their own assumptions and experiences, economic inclusion is thus not only a solution to a social justice issue, it is a key strategy for sparking innovative minds."