To avoid higher costs for online students, UK caps tuition for undergraduates
The University of Kentucky will cap tuition and mandatory fees for full-time students irrespective of how many in-person or online classes a student takes.
In previous years, students who took online classes would typically have to pay more per class than a student who took classes in-person only. But with the pandemic pushing more students toward online or hybrid learning classes, the university opted to keep tuition flat, UK President Capilouto wrote in an email to the campus on Friday.
Tuition and fees for in-state students will be locked at a maximum of $6,242. Out-of-state students will pay a max of $15,647.
According to a press release, the cap will cost the university $5 million in lost tuition revenue, and officials are evaluating whether or not the cap will continue into the spring semester.
“As we plan our return to face-to-face instruction, we know that many students and faculty want the option to explore online, alternative or hybrid learning formats,” Capilouto wrote. “Without the cap, the result for many undergraduate students would have been higher tuition and fees than they would have incurred with more in-person options.”
Capilouto wrote that students could potentially save “several hundred, if not thousands, of dollars.” He wrote that a full-time, in-state student taking 12 in-person hours and three hours online would normally pay $7,937, but with this fall’s tuition cap, the student would pay almost $1,700 less.
Last school year, undergraduate students had to pay online learning rates per credit hour of online class. Students taking a mix of online and in-person classes had to pay an additional $601 per online hour. Online-only students had to pay $570 per additional hour.
In June, the university’s board of trustees approved a 1 percent tuition increase for in-state students and a 2 percent bump for out-of-state students — the lowest annual increase in decades. Tuition for in-state, undergraduate students would go from $6,180 this past school year to $6,242. Out-of-state tuition would go from $15,340 to $15,647.
Last year, overall enrollment was 30,545 with 22,276 of those undergraduate students.
This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 3:53 PM.