Pros
I worked for the University for 2 years and have lived in Manhattan for 10+ years. I will start with the positive aspects, from my perspective. Benefits are not bad. The health insurance has a few options with reasonable premiums and deductibles, the issue lies more with providers around Manhattan having a market capture so they get to charge what they want. For anything more specialized, look at Topeka or KC, KS. You’ll for sure find more availability and better prices. The PTO and sick leave are GREAT. You start out earning 5 weeks/year (I’m not sure what the max is) on top of paid holidays, plus the paid week off the week of Christmas-NYD, hopefully, they keep that going. This can vary but I was in a position that interacted with different units/people. It’s amazing how many people are quite pleasant to work with and ready to offer help. Lot’s of great technology offerings in terms of software - O365, Adobe, etc. Though I’m sure that’s a standard for enterprise setting.
Cons
Now for some of the negatives. K-State would be fantastic given the above for any position that is Mid-Senior level, I’m thinking grade 10A and up because that pay level is pretty good for Manhattan, for now. I’d wager most positions here are either 7A-9A. The issue is it is actually not easy to move around within the university unless you know people with influence beyond the surface level. Many positions are opened to promote someone from within the same department, I have that info on good authority from a friend in HCS. I applied for about 5-7 internal positions after a year or so and some were cancelled but the others I was denied for despite meeting all basic and most/all preferred criteria. The pay is generally not that good for those grades mentioned. For any given position, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail to come close to the midpoint of that salary range, and that’s if the budgeted “hiring” range even goes up to it. Generally raises will have nothing to do with merit and more about if the budget is there, which typically it is not. Another friend from a different department has worked in the same position for 10 years and is not even at the midpoint of their range. I have seen the department I worked for not re-hire important positions twice just for the sake of saving that money, so people end up doing more work without an amicable increase in comp. So it is very easy to get trapped in a position where you’ll have scope creep for your job, but you’re not seeing a salary that keeps up with inflation or is merit-based, and it’s harder than it should be to move up internally. This has worked for K-State for so long because of the lack of employer competition in Manhattan. It’s interesting to me that between the strategic plan launch and the response to the cyber event they will hire like crazy ($$$$) for these high-level positions but make less effort to improve comp % for the people doing the actual work beyond 2%. I’m sure others would have a different experience but these are my opinions. Also, have fun being forced to pay for a parking pass when you're required to be in the office!