UK: record enrollment, graduation rates reflect commitment to advancing Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 13, 2024) — It’s a simple, but powerful formula: more students succeeding at higher rates means a more skilled, healthy and educated workforce to meet Kentucky’s needs.

By those measures, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto told members of the Board of Trustees on Friday, UK is making “historic strides in its mission to advance the state in terms of the numbers of students we are educating, retaining and graduating.”

“We know that what our students do here — and how successful they are at UK — will determine, in large measure, whether we are successful in advancing Kentucky,” Capilouto said. “Our mission — now more than at any time in our history — is to open our doors as wide as possible to more and more students, who will shape the future of this state. These numbers reflect our commitment to that ideal. These numbers reflect that we are Kentucky.”

Here are the details:

• For the first time, UK’s preliminary fall enrollment is over 36,000 students — 36,161 — about a 7% increase over last year. Of that number, 25,774 are undergraduates, a 7.5% increase over the previous year.
• The first-year class of 6,571 is also a record high and a little more than a 2% increase over last year’s class.
• In addition, 1,162 transfer students represent the largest number of transfers in more than a decade and about a 16% increase over last year.
• A record 18.8% of UK’s first-year students come from underrepresented backgrounds as defined by state policymakers and more than 17% of the overall enrollment does as well, according to preliminary figures; 26.1% of UK’s first-year class is first-generation.
• Even as the number of first-year Black students declined from last year by about 60 students, according to preliminary numbers, the number of undergraduates and overall number of Black students increased as did the numbers of Hispanic students and those identifying as two or more races.
• UK’s six-year graduation rate is now more than 71% — another record that places the university among the top 100 public, four-year institutions in America, based on the most recent data. UK’s four-year graduation rate is now a little more than 60% — almost 30 percentage points higher than it was 15 years ago. Preliminary retention — the percentage of students returning for their second year at the university — also is a record 87.3%.
• Another modern record is the number of degrees and certificates awarded by UK — 9,545 for 2023-24, according to preliminary numbers.

Finally, the university’s efforts to utilize innovative programs to propel student success also are paying off.

UK Invests — a first-of-its-kind program that debuted last year — provides access to low-risk investment accounts to every student, with opportunities for students to earn money for developing healthy habits. In the first year of the program, more than 20% of students have opened an account.

The retention rate of those students who were in their first year was about 92%, compared to a little more than 84% for those who did not participate. First-year students with UK Invests accounts also had higher GPAs — 3.3 compared to 3.0 who did not participate. More importantly, these gains are seen across levels of incoming student preparation.

Already this fall, more than one-third of new first-year students have opened UK Invests accounts.

“We exist to advance this state in everything that we do. And we are united in our focus on that mission,” Capilouto said. “The enrollment numbers represent one chapter in the story we are writing about what we are doing to honor that vision and achieve our mission. We don’t intend to stop. There are still too many chapters to write, too many stories to tell, so much more to do for our students, their families and this state whose name we bear.”