KY universities are too expensive for those who need them most | Opinion

As students return to Kentucky’s public universities this fall, I am reminded of the young people I have met who are trying to balance classes with the harsh reality of homelessness. I have spent nights with students who sleep in their cars or couch-surf between friends, all while fighting to afford the rising cost of attendance. Their struggle is the direct result of choices made by Kentucky’s universities and the Council on Postsecondary Education, which have created an affordability crisis.

The numbers tell the story. This year, the estimated cost of attendance for in-state students tops $35,098 at the University of Kentucky and $33,706 at the University of Louisville. Even at regional universities, costs now hover between $22,000 and $27,000 a year.

For low-income students, this is unsustainable. Enrollment data confirm it: low-income and Pell-eligible student enrollment in Kentucky has steadily declined over the last decade, even as tuition and fees have climbed. In other words, those who most need education as a pathway forward are being pushed out.

Yet while students struggle, we continue to provide huge salaries, free housing, expense accounts, and cars for university presidents. Those perks are treated as untouchable, while the very students who pay the bills are left in crisis. When Representatives William Lawrence and Representative Kim Banta introduced a bill to guarantee consistent tuition for students — so each incoming class would know their costs for four years — the universities and the CPE fought it. That should outrage every Kentuckian.

The truth is, Kentucky is behind. Other states already understand that predictability is essential. Ohio, North Carolina, and even private institutions like Transylvania University in Lexington have adopted tuition locks or guarantees. These states and schools recognize that stability helps students plan and graduate on time. Kentucky’s refusal to follow suit shows a preference for administrative convenience over student survival.

The need to do more does not stop with tuition. Our foster care tuition waiver, a program meant to ensure young people aging out of foster care can access higher education, remains an unfunded mandate. Universities are forced to cover the costs out of their own budgets, making them resistant to expanding the program. But blaming students in foster care for an underfunded system is wrong. The legislature must provide real funding for this waiver. Without it, the promise made to some of our most vulnerable young people remains an illusion.

Students deserve more than half-measures of unaffordability dressed up as progress. They deserve more than press releases claiming to care about “access” while enrollment of low-income students drops. They deserve a system that will freeze tuition, fund foster youth, and open the books, so the public can see where the money really goes.

As the semester begins, the question for Kentucky’s leaders is simple: will Kentucky continue to accept a system where students are homeless while presidents enjoy free mansions, or will we finally demand that affordability come first? Kentucky’s private institutions and other states have shown the way. Kentucky students, especially our low-income students, cannot wait any longer.

Michael Frazier is a Powell County native, a National Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award Recipient, Executive Director of the Kentucky Students Rights Coalition, and a Republican consultant.

This story was originally published October 22, 2025 at 6:00 AM.