Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

Kentucky

30 colleges on the site: 8 public, 21 private nonprofit, 1 for-profit. Their undergraduates fell 1% in total since fall 2014, to 117,788 today (28 of 30 Kentucky colleges in the panel).

Explore Kentucky's colleges

How Kentucky's colleges changed

The median Kentucky college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

-6%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+31%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+3.7 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-16%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

8 colleges

Private nonprofit

19 colleges
Undergrads
-4%
Applicants
+28%
Acceptance rate
+2.7 pts
Average cost
-16%

Where Kentucky's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. Kentucky (in-state)69%
  2. OH6%
  3. TN5%
  4. IL4%
  5. IN4%
  6. GA1%
  7. VA1%
  8. MO1%

Public:

27% → 31% (8 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

32% → 30% (21 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
7,826
Outflow
3,703
Net
+4,123

Kentucky's colleges enroll 2.1 first-years from other states for every Kentucky resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. University of Kentucky34%
  2. Western Kentucky University12%
  3. University of Louisville11%
  4. Murray State University7%
  5. Northern Kentucky University6%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in Kentucky

The same as the national lists, restricted to Kentucky's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +32.0% (12 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Murray State University+120.3%4,760 → 10,486
  2. 2Morehead State University+74.5%5,236 → 9,134
  3. 3Eastern Kentucky University+74.1%9,776 → 17,024
  4. 4University of Kentucky+52.4%20,677 → 31,517
  5. 5Centre College+50.2%2,494 → 3,747
  6. 6University of Louisville+47.8%10,604 → 15,668
  7. 7Western Kentucky University+16.3%8,462 → 9,840

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 7 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −7.5% (19 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Campbellsville University+34.0%2,119 → 2,840
  2. 2Midway University+21.6%1,038 → 1,262
  3. 3University of Kentucky+14.0%21,725 → 24,763
  4. 4Thomas More University+4.0%1,243 → 1,293
  5. 5Centre College+1.5%1,379 → 1,400

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 5 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −17.8% (19 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Georgetown College−45.0%$27,940 → $15,362
  2. 2University of the Cumberlands−34.5%$22,777 → $14,923
  3. 3Morehead State University−31.9%$16,274 → $11,086
  4. 4University of Pikeville−29.9%$22,570 → $15,829
  5. 5Kentucky State University−29.2%$20,619 → $14,602
  6. 6Centre College−28.6%$33,649 → $24,020
  7. 7Eastern Kentucky University−19.4%$17,782 → $14,330
  8. 8Lindsey Wilson University−19.4%$23,229 → $18,735
  9. 9Asbury University−18.1%$28,670 → $23,474
  10. 10Murray State University−17.8%$20,149 → $16,567

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

Kentucky's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 28 of 30 Kentucky colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)