Students will have a new way to access scholarship opportunities after the Office of Financial Assistance announced Monday that it is launching a new K-State Scholarship Network. The change comes as KSN is switching platforms from Blackbaud AcademicWorks to Next Gen Scholarship Manager, a shift that will take effect in mid to late September.
Vanessa Flipse, associate director of scholarships, said the new KSN will function the same as the previous scholarship network while improving overall student experience and fixing common issues.
“KSN is going to still be KSN,” Flipse said. “It’s just going to have a different look and feel.”
Flipse said users could previously view only one academic year of scholarships, a main issue with KSN under the former program.
“Students could go in and say ‘24-25 and do their application, and then once that closed so that we could open ‘25-26, they could no longer see their application for ‘24-25,” Flipse said. “And that caused a lot of issues for students.”
The new KSN will eliminate this issue by allowing both students and administrators to view scholarships for more than one academic year.
“They’ll see their awards that they have available, that they’ve had awarded to them in ‘26-27,” Flipse said. “Then when we open for ‘28-29 … they’ll be able to see ‘27-28 and ‘28-29, both of those applications.”
The Kansas State University Foundation’s contract with Blackbaud will end in February 2027, prompting the search for a new platform. To decide what the new KSN would look like, Flipse said the Office of Student Financial Assistance formed a committee to review presentations from different scholarship platforms. After each member had the opportunity to try the different options, they ultimately chose Next Gen.
“We were able to see some really great products, and we just decided that Next Gen was really more in line with what we wanted to do as an institution,” Flipse said. “We needed to make sure that we had something in place, so that we would be able to make that transition over, and make it as flawless as possible for the students.”
Flipse said she encourages students to get familiar with the new scholarship network once it becomes available.
“We’re really excited to get it started and have the students have the ability to go in there and get the look, get the feel of the new system,” Flipse said. “It’s just a really good idea for the students to take the time to fill out that application. Some of the scholarships that are available to them are only available if they answer the questions.”
