A College Access Program for Kansas City's Urban Youth
Kauffman Scholars is a comprehensive, multi-year program designed to help promising, yet challenged, low-income urban students in Kansas City prepare for and complete a college education. The program provides support to students beginning in seventh grade and will work with students until they complete college.
The program was launched by the Kauffman Foundation in the fall of 2003, when the first class of seventh graders joined the program. During each of the following seven years, the program will select a new class of seventh graders to become Kauffman Scholars, inviting about 200 students into the program each year. At least 2,300 Kansas City area urban students are projected to participate in the program.
To help Kauffman Scholars recognize their full potential and best prepare for a successful future, students receive intensive academic enrichment and support services, including:
- Academic enrichment, tutoring, counseling, career planning, summer college campus programs, job shadowing and internship experiences;
- Life coaching to provide individualized attention that helps students develop life skills;
- Scholarship support for college or other post-secondary education; and
- Programs for parents of the Kauffman Scholars.
Students are selected and invited into the program at the beginning of their seventh grade year. Selection is based on criteria related to family income and their academic performance to date. Families must either be eligible for the federal free lunch or students must attend a school in which a majority of the students qualify for free lunch. Students will demonstrate academic potential, but may not be performing at their full potential when they enter the program.
Students selected for the program must live in the Kansas City, Kansas or Kansas City, Missouri public school districts and attend public or charter school in the Kansas City, Kansas or Kansas City, Missouri.
Kauffman Scholars is one of the only college access programs in the country that works with students beginning in seventh grade and follows them through college. It is also one of the only programs that identifies students who have potential, yet are not performing at their full potential. Most other similar programs seek out the students with the highest grades or best academic performance.
The Kauffman Scholars program is operated by Kauffman Scholars, Inc., an independent nonprofit organization. The Kauffman Foundation is providing the initial funding and technical assistance to support the program.