higher education

West African food can be hard to find in Kansas City. For many Nigerians living here, the familiar flavors of home are especially missed around Christmastime. Plus, a college student from Missouri shares the ups and downs of attending school with the added complications of the pandemic.

Missouri legislators have pre-filed bills tweaking state financial aid programs, allowing concealed carry weapons on campuses, and prohibiting transgender women from playing on female sports teams.

Large donors can put universities in potentially awkward positions when faculty conclusions conflict with the interests of those benefactors. Data collected by Harvest Public Media and Investigate Midwest show corporations have given at least $170 million to ag colleges in the past decade.

From Iowa to Oklahoma to Kansas, universities are working more closely with agribusiness in search of ways to pay for projects where tax dollars have become more scarce. Critics worry that agriculture schools might focus more on industry than the public interest.

TIAA-CREF invests heavily in farmland, so it paid a university to research it.

Ayuda financiera federal y estatal no son opciones para los estudiantes indocumentados en Missouri y Kansas, pero aún pueden encontrar becas para pagar la universidad.

Federal and state aid aren’t options for undocumented students in Missouri and Kansas, but they can still find scholarships to pay for college.

It’s unclear how many employees already got the shots. Pittsburg State University says 80% of its benefit-earning workers got vaccinated when the school offered bonuses.

Over the past five years, enrollment is down 8.6% at four-year universities in Kansas and 17.5% at community colleges.

About 300 students at Harris-Stowe University in St. Louis will not have to worry about some of the debt they took on to pay for school during the pandemic.

The Kansas Promise Scholarship will pay the cost of tuition, fees and books for students in dozens of programs at Johnson County Community College and Kansas City, Kansas Community College.

The Board of Curators extended the current mask policy through Oct. 15, after three Republicans were defeated in their push to lift the classroom rule for anyone who has been vaccinated.