By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Western State University is making applying to college a little easier for students in the St. Joseph School District through a new partnership,
The two recently signed an agreement for a direct admissions program, that will cut down the information needed for students applying for college, streamlining the process slightly.
President Elizabeth Kennedy says college application paperwork can be complicated
"Basically, what we’re doing is just taking out some of those requirements, getting the basics, the very basics that we need for information, taking that and putting it into our system so that we can get either an admissions recruiter, an advisor, whoever it is, connected immediately to walk them through the rest of it,” Kennedy tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Kennedy says this process will make the difficulty of applying for college easier, possibly drawing more local students to MoWest.
"Ask yourself the question, if you had to do something and it was very complicated and difficult, or you had to do something and you just had to do a little bit, you’d probably go for option B,” Kennedy explains. “And that’s kind of our goal.”
Kennedy says students already matriculate well from St. Joseph to MoWest, this agreement is more about eliminating barriers to getting into college
"We know we’re affordable, so that’s not a barrier, we know that we have high quality education, what’s the other piece that might prohibit or restrict people from coming and that’s ease of application,” Kennedy says.
The partnership will begin being offered to district graduates of the class of 2026. This is the first partnership of its kind between a university and a school district in Missouri.
St. Joseph School Superintendent Ashly McGinnis says this is a great opportunity for students, especially with all of the workforce growth opportunities at the university, such as the Houlne Center for Convergent Technology.
"Houlne Center is an awesome expansion almost onto our Hillyard programming, and so we are excited to be able to offer those opportunities for our kids,” McGinnis says.
Direct admission guarantees admission to graduates of Central, Benton and Lafayette High Schools that meet minimum academic criteria
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.