UK board approves largest budget ever: Employee raises coming. So is a tuition increase
The University of Kentucky has approved its largest budget in school history — nearly $8.4 billion — that includes $18 million for a salary increase pool for employees and a 2.2% tuition increase for students.
The budget is $1.6 billion, or 23%, larger than last year’s and calls for investing more in UK HealthCare, academics and athletics. The budget was approved at Friday morning’s board of trustees meeting.
“This budget reflects an ongoing effort, over many years, to support the people in classrooms, research labs, hospitals and clinics, in our facilities, on our grounds across farm fields and in cities and towns throughout Kentucky who make so much progress possible for our state,” UK President Eli Capilouto said.
The bulk of the budget increase comes from UK HealthCare, whose increased number of patients treated and acquisition of St. Clair HealthCare expanded the budget, and the single-largest increase in state appropriations that UK has received, said Angie Martin, vice president for financial planning and chief budget officer.
Of the $8.4 billion, $5 billion will go toward the UK HealthCare hospital system, $3.1 billion will go toward academics and higher education, and $216 million will go toward UK Athletics.
Tuition increases, funding for campus facilities
The tuition increase means tuition and fees for the fall 2024 semester will be $6,751 for in-state undergraduate students and $17,070 for out-of-state undergraduate students. Graduate students will also have a 2.2% tuition increase, making tuition for in-state graduate students $7,322 and $18,119 for out-of-state graduate students.
The capital budget includes authorization to build new infrastructure, including $2 billion for a new bed tower at Albert B. Chandler Hospital, $285 million for an agriculture research facility in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and $154 million for campus renovations and asset preservation.
“We have an obligation and deep responsibility to honor the expression of faith — and investment — Kentucky has made in us: To enroll and educate more students, to expand our commitment to service in every community in the state and to extend the promise of healing and hope to ensure no Kentuckian must ever leave home to receive the best of care in the most challenging of moments,” Capilouto said. “We intend to deliver.”
State laws around budgets, funding
A law passed earlier this year changed one aspect of how the performance-funding model works, eliminating race as a metric. Performance-based funding is a complex funding formula that has been in place in Kentucky since 2016, and determines how state funding is distributed to public universities based on their performance in certain metrics.
Senate Bill 191 explicitly bars the Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees higher education in Kentucky, from considering “any race-based metrics or targets in the formulas” and removed references to minority students. Now, performance-based funding will look at the number of degrees awarded to “underrepresented students.”
Even with the legislative changes, UK — the largest public university in the state — received the most money from the performance-based funding model, and exceeded 8 of the 11 metrics used for evaluation, according to CPE data.
CPE also sets statewide tuition increase caps for universities. Between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years, universities cannot increase tuition by more than 5% total, and cannot increase tuition by more than 3% in a single academic year for in-state students.
This story was originally published June 13, 2024 at 5:15 PM.