Last year, 120 out of the 206 students in the senior class stayed in-state for college, and out of those who didn’t, 22 remained in the Midwest.

Of course, every student considers the factors of cost and distance from home when looking at universities. In-state schools are enormously cheaper, and no one wants to spend another year’s worth of tuition on traveling for Thanksgiving.

But so many kids refer to Johnson County as “the bubble,” and it usually does not have a positive connotation. If so many students feel trapped, why does over half of the school choose to stay in Kansas each year?

Staying In-State

Sophomore Callie Williams hops into the SUV with her family and heads off to tailgate before every Wildcats football game. Plenty of avid college sports fans ride down to watch the games as well, and there might even be some others who’ve been attending the same games for about 15 years. But for Callie, they’re more than just games. They were part of her childhood, something she grew up with, and they’re just one of the reasons why she wants to stay in-state for college.

Callie has lived in Kansas for as long as she’s been alive. She wants to grow up to teach children who speak Spanish. She considers herself to be a city person. She wants to study abroad. But in order to reach these goals, she sees no reason to have to leave Kansas after high school.

“I didn’t go on many vacations outside of Kansas [as a kid] because all of my grandparents and relatives live here,” Williams said. “I didn’t really see what it was like [outside of the state] until later on.”

Callie’s parents both grew up in Kansas, and her mom’s parents lived here their whole lives as well. Her mother, Denise Williams, decided not to leave the state she grew up in after high school and attended Kansas State University.

“It’s a big school, but it had a small town feel to it,” Denise said. “Most people who go there are from Kansas, so it seems like there’d be connections. You’d meet people and you’d know someone in common just because most people are not from far away.”

Denise eventually met her husband Mark at K-State, and after college they got married and moved within the Blue Valley School District. Callie plans on attending her parents’ alma mater as well.

“It’s the only place I really know,” Callie said. “I’ve always loved it and I’ve always pictured myself going there.”

By choosing to go to K-State, Callie knows she will always be close to home: Denise has no doubt about for how long the family plans to live in Kansas.

“Probably forever.”

Bordering State Lines

Math teacher Kelley Alexander ended up at an in-state school, even though she initially wanted to leave Kansas. Alexander grew up attending the same Nazarene church her mother went to when she was younger, so Kelley knew she wanted to find a Nazarene college. But at first, the school her mother, father and older sister attended, MidAmerica Nazarene University, didn’t seem appealing because of its proximity to home.

“For me, I thought I didn’t want to go to MidAmerica,” Alexander said. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to be in this city still.’ [But] I looked at three or four different Nazarene

schools, and with every one except for MidAmerica, when I went on campus it didn’t feel right. And I didn’t feel that way at MidAmerica. I was holding a grudge against it because it was close to home, but in the end it turned out to be the right choice.”

Aside from the three years she spent in Dallas during elementary school, Alexander spent her entire childhood in Olathe. She met her husband, who grew up in Topeka where his mom was raised, the first year after she decided to attend MidAmerica.

“Sometimes I wish I would have gone away for college, just so I would have seen something different,” Alexander said. “Mr. Alexander and I have talked about how we think after we’d met each other freshman year, maybe we would’ve liked to transfer somewhere together. But you can’t really have any regrets – you can’t look back and think ‘what if.’”

After college, the Alexanders briefly lived in an apartment in Lenexa before moving back to Olathe.But traveling became a part of their lives right away; they took four different vacations just during their first year of marriage.

“I could see us staying here forever, just because this area we’re in is so good to raise families,” she said. “We have our nice house, easy commutes and jobs that we really like, and we have [almost] all of our cousins and aunts and uncles right here. [But] if we didn’t travel, I could see us wanting to move somewhere else to see something new.”

Alexander suggests not worrying too much about the location of the school initially.

“I wouldn’t pick a school based on where it is – saying like ‘I want to get away from my family’ or ‘I want to be on the beach,’” she said. “I would pick it more on the atmosphere, because you can have a college in a great location, but when you actually get onto the campus it doesn’t feel right. If you get both location and that good feeling then that’s great, but I would pick it more on what it has to offer for you.”

Eager to leave Kansas

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the students who have a strong desire and reason to leave. Senior Connor Davis has a future in mind, hopefully at Harvard University.

“I love its location and I love the campus – if I don’t get into Harvard, I want to find a college where it’s the same kind of scenario and atmosphere,” Davis said. “Everyone there you know is just as smart or probably smarter than you, and I think that’s a cool feeling.”

Davis is one of seven kids. He has a brother at Harvard and a sister at Yale, and his parents have started their own business.

“Just seeing so many different things like what my brother and sister are doing; there are just so many new things and new people that I want to meet and see, and I think college is a great opportunity to do that,” he said.

Many people are afraid of leaving home, but for Davis, being on his own is nothing new.

“I’ve grown up with a lot of brothers and sisters, so I know how to take care of myself and other people,” Davis said. “I don’t feel the need to have a parent within a couple of hours. That’s not limiting me.”

Over the summer, Davis attended a three-week camp at Columbia University in New York City, where he was exposed to a new potential career path in international relations. Without that experience of being in a completely different environment, he might not have ever considered the possibility.

“I don’t think Kansas is a horrible place; I just think there are a lot of places that are better than Kansas,” Davis said. “It’s probably a great place to raise a child, but I don’t think it’s a great place to be when you’re 20 and learning, trying to meet new people. There’s a type of crowd Kansas would be ideal for, but I don’t think it’s the college kid.”

Like Callie, Davis describes himself as a big city person. He is also studying Spanish and considering studying abroad in Spain. But Davis doesn’t see himself reaching his full potential in the same place he grew up.

“I think it [living far away] builds character in a way that you have to figure out your own problems,” Davis said. “You’re on your own. It forces you to reach outside of your comfort zone – making new friends, finding your way around a new place – it’s a whole new life that you have to learn. Whereas if you go to K-State, you probably already know a lot of the people that are going to that college, and I don’t think it stretches you as far as going someplace else would.”

In the Halls

“Texas A&M Corpus Christi. It’s an island like in the middle of the ocean the whole campus is an island I found it it’s pretty cheap so that’s where I’m going to go to college I’m going to get a general business degree it’s pretty sweet there that’s where I’m going to go it’s a satellite school.”

-Sophomore Sam Kersey

“I want to go out of state for college because Kansas is a black hole of death and I’ll never get out of it if I don’t go to college anywhere else. I want to see the world.” -junior Alyssa Yarbrough

“Probably in-state because it’s cheaper and it’s close to home. It’s all I know and I don’t want to leave Kansas.” -senior Andy Lindsey

“I’m probably going to UMKC. I have more scholarship opportunities, and it has the program I’m looking for, and I don’t want to go far away because I feel like I still have responsibility here.”

-senior Megan Edwards