The Kansas Securities Commissioner, Kansas Bank Commissioner, and the Kansas Insurance Department are partnering in the
Fifth Annual Kansas Financial Scholars Essay Scholarship Contest, which will award a total of $8,000 in scholarships to the authors of the top five essays received. First place will receive $3,000, second place will receive $2,000, and third, fourth, and fifth place will each receive $1,000.
To be eligible, the essayists must be Kansas high school seniors (public, private, or home-schooled), must be planning to attend a Kansas technical school, trade school, college, or university next year, and must have enrolled in and completed at least one of these approved financial literacy courses during high school:
The course must be completed by April 12. If the course awards a certificate of completion, candidates should email it with their essay submission.
If you are not enrolled in an approved program, but would like to be enrolled for free today and be eligible for the current Essay Scholarship Contest, please call 785-296-3307.
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The essay consists of two parts:
1. Discuss a real-life event by yourself, a friend, or a family member that impacted your view of intelligent money management (two pages or less).
2. Interview one to two people in the field/career in which you aspire for yourself. Then provide an 800-1500 word analysis of what you learned from your previous life experience, the interview, and the financial literacy course you completed as it relates to your financial planning in your own life.
Citing sources, include at least two of the following into your analysis:
- A simple Excel chart comparing the cost of various types of higher education
- Positive and negative aspects of getting a loan for higher education as opposed to paying your way through college
- The earning potential of your chosen field or career, and the average debt load and pay-off time one would face upon completion
The essay shall:
- Be an op-ed in MLA or APA style
- Word document
- In English
- Typed in 12-point font and double-spaced
- Part 1 should not exceed 500 words
- Part 2 should be between 800-1,500 words
- Be properly cited from credible sources
- Be accompanied by a completed Entry Form (which will not be part of the word count)
- Be saved in the fomat <School_FirstNameLastName>.i.e. RiverSideHigh_JohnBrown.
The document should be listed in this format in the email subject line. If possible, entry forms and essays should be merged into a single Word document attachment and emailed to ksc@ks.gov.
Essays will be accepted until 11:59 pm CST, Monday, April 1, 2019.
The winning essays will be announced on or before Tuesday, April 23, 2019 via KSC *@Kansas.Securities), OSBC (@ksosbc) and KID (@KansasInsuranceDepartment) Facebook pages.
For full, official rules, please see the following link:
https://www.ksc.ks.gov/essaycontest