Enrollment numbers are out for the University of Kentucky and the campus is continuing to see growth.
UK’s Board of Trustees has been meeting over the past two days in Hazard, and today they are going over the enrollment numbers at the University which showed more students are attending overall and some areas have seen dramatic growth. The number of Black and Hispanic students has risen and 38% of the overall student population is paying out-of-state tuition; that’s the highest number in the school’s history. We asked UK Provost Tim Tracy if there was concern that the non-resident percentage would cause pushback from state legislators because that means less aid for every Kentuckian who wants to attend. “We’ve undergone what we believe is strategic smart growth to shape the class so that we have the most diverse class and diversity defines itself in many ways. It is race, it is ethnicity it is gender but it’s also experiences, culture. So we’re always looking to have the most diverse class possible. We don’t see percentages moving substantially one direction or another so this is an area that we think is optimal for us”
Tracy said no students who live in-state and meet UK’s academic requirement have been turned away and that the campus is the largest and most diverse in the University’s history. For the second year in a row, the freshman class has exceeded 5,000 students. Tracy said the next goal is to increase retention and graduation rates.