The University of Kentucky needs to take a hard look at itself | Opinion

To the students, faculty, staff, and administrators at the University of Kentucky: you deserve honesty about why the pressure now building in Frankfort around higher education is not accidental, and why so much of it begins here at the commonwealth’s flagship university.

My work on free speech, due process, ending DEI mandates, challenging performance funding for race-based metrics, fighting for unweighted metrics in funding, and supporting measures such as HB 490 to strengthen accountability for tenured professors did not begin as an abstract policy exercise. It started at UK. It started by watching, firsthand, how an institution entrusted with the future of Kentucky students too often came to believe it was accountable only to itself. The culture that took root here — elitism, moral certainty, and administrative hubris — has shaped much of the legislative response now taking place.

The campus community has a right to understand that these initiatives are not born out of hostility toward higher education. They are the result of years of frustration from Kentuckians who increasingly feel dismissed by the very institution they fund. Too often, the interests of students, faculty, staff, and administration align. Just as often, they do not. And when those interests diverge, it is taxpayers, families, and donors across this Commonwealth who are left carrying the cost.

Today, people are no longer willing to remain silent. They are holding institutions accountable in real time — on social media, in public forums, and in the legislature. The conversation is no longer confined to campus press releases or administrative talking points. Kentuckians are asking direct questions, and they expect direct answers. For years, UK has chased prestige as though the pursuit itself were proof of success. Yet the central question has become impossible to ignore: what exactly are Kentuckians getting in return? After years of enormous spending and leadership compensation, national rankings have remained stubbornly mediocre. At the same time, UK’s own public messaging has consistently highlighted continued revenue growth and record-setting budgets. In 2024, the university announced a nearly $8.4 billion budget, an increase of roughly $1.6 billion in a single year. In 2025, that figure climbed again.

What has made this harder for many Kentuckians to accept is the reality that the flagship’s growth (at the design of Dr. Eli Capilouto and Dr. Eric Monday) has too often come at the expense of the comprehensive universities that serve the rest of the commonwealth. Performance funding and state allocation models were presented as mechanisms for accountability and outcomes, yet —as noted by Senator Steve West and Chair of the Senate Education Committee — many outside Lexington have watched as regional institutions were left to compete for shrinking shares while UK continued to expand. Whether by design or effect, the result has been a sense that resources were increasingly concentrated at the flagship while comprehensives were asked to do more with less.

Concerns about affordability and student support deserve serious attention, particularly when scholarship funding is raised in these discussions. But the record over the last two biennia shows that the General Assembly has already provided support to the university, while UK has continued to report growing revenues and expanding multibillion-dollar budgets. Those realities suggest the issue is less about raw dollars alone and more about how resources are prioritized within an institution of this size.

This conversation cannot be about branding campaigns, carefully worded press releases, or institutional image management. It must be about value. It must be about whether the University of Kentucky still understands that it exists to serve the people of Kentucky first. The cost of getting this wrong has been too high. Kentucky families have watched tuition pressures rise, comprehensive universities fight for resources, and the flagship continue to behave as though it alone defines higher education in this state.

With budget cuts now forcing hard choices, UK faces a clear decision: change or remain stagnant. Call the cuts reparations for institutional elitism and the cost to comprehensives, or pure annoyance of savior complexes held by administrators at the University of Kentucky. The choice is yours now: reform from within, or be reformed from without. Regardless of your decision: let me be the first to welcome UK back to reality — and back to serving Kentucky.

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.