As a part of their Biennial Bus Tour members of the Kansas Legislature have been traveling the state visiting the states Universities.

The Legislatures stopped at Kansas State University Tuesday. Kirk Schulz, KSU President, provided a brief slide show on how and what the University is currently doing. That presentation included an update on how the university’s goal of becoming a top 50 research university by 2025 is coming along.

Schulz explained that the reason they want to become a top 50 research university is to make each graduates degree as valuable as possible,”That’s at the undergraduate level, the masters level and the PhD level. It makes no difference what program their in, we want that degree to be really valuable.”

Following Schulz’s presentation the legislatures were given the opportunity to ask him questions about the University. A question brought up dealt with how does the university help students be successful in the career path they choose. Schulz said it starts with first class advisement.

“We talk to the students early on about what it is they are trying to do.” Schulz said.”If a student says, I’m going to major in English, instead of saying well you really need to go major in something else over here, we say what is it that you want to do and how can we advise you appropriately to make sure that it happens.”

Another discussion involved the increase of tuition rates and how it will affect students. Schulz explained that proposed tuition increases at the university do go through a committee made up of students and faculty before being taken to the board of regents.

“What happens is we have a very clear thing, we’ll use this for a building, we’ll use this for financial aid and we’re going to use this for this particular area.” He said that in his mind they have done a better job in higher education of mapping out where the money is being spent,”so people really see where those dollars are going and it’s not the kind of trust me mentality.”

The university has spent a lot of time focusing on raising private dollars and scholarships to help the students, “We’re taking those dollars when they come in and were making sure that were hitting our students with the most significant financial need.”

The Legislators have will be wrapping up their bus tour Wednesday with visits to the University of Kansas Medical Center and Kansas University in Lawrence.