State profile · KY
Kentucky
Kentucky has 35 degree-granting institutions in this data. Between them they award 1,822 research doctorates and 23,139 master’s degrees over the window, and take $382.1m in federal research and development money.
This page counts every institution in the state, including the ones that award no graduate degree at all. Leaving those out would make a state look like its flagship.
institutions in the state
13 award a research doctorate. 5 enrol no graduate students at all.
of research doctorates go to non-residents
640 of 1,822. National figure: 38.9%.
of graduate enrolment is non-resident
8,799 of 61,649 graduate students.
federal research and development money
Across 15 institutions. $363.1m in total federal obligations.
Where Kentucky sits
The non-resident share of research doctorates, against the same figure for the country. That is 3.8 points below the national figure of 38.9%. The pattern this site measures nationally is weaker here, not stronger.
Kentucky ranks 34 of 52 states on that share, and 29 of 56 on the number of research doctorates it awards. Rank 1 is the highest. Only states that award doctorates are ranked.
Undergraduate and graduate, side by side
The same institutions at two levels. Undergraduate is the remainder once graduate enrolment is taken out of the total, and both levels carry their own non-resident count. In Kentucky the graduate share is 12.4 points higher than the undergraduate share.
Click any column heading to sort. Click it again to reverse. The panel under the table narrows what is shown — everything is shown until you ask for less.
| Institution | Undergraduates | Non-res | Share | Graduates | Non-res | Share | State funding | Federal R&D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Kentucky | 23,930 | 359 | 1.5% | 8,773 | 800 | 9.1% | $319.7m | $527.7m |
| University of Louisville | 16,194 | 233 | 1.4% | 5,945 | 552 | 9.3% | $146.4m | $225.0m |
| University of the Cumberlands | 6,091 | 0 | 0.0% | 14,236 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — |
| Western Kentucky University | 14,590 | 91 | 0.6% | 2,169 | 57 | 2.6% | $83.4m | $11.2m |
| Eastern Kentucky University | 12,726 | 90 | 0.7% | 2,282 | 52 | 2.3% | $76.7m | $1.4m |
| Northern Kentucky University | 9,927 | 349 | 3.5% | 5,034 | 133 | 2.6% | $64.9m | $3.3m |
| Campbellsville University | 6,853 | 255 | 3.7% | 5,598 | 4,153 | 74.2% | — | — |
| Murray State University | 7,878 | 282 | 3.6% | 1,963 | 388 | 19.8% | $54.8m | $3.6m |
| Morehead State University | 8,058 | 72 | 0.9% | 560 | 2 | 0.4% | $49.8m | $2.3m |
| Galen College of Nursing-Louisville | 4,184 | 0 | 0.0% | 610 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — |
| The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary | 1,004 | 44 | 4.4% | 3,239 | 622 | 19.2% | — | — |
| Lindsey Wilson University | 1,783 | 45 | 2.5% | 2,272 | 1,392 | 61.3% | — | — |
| Bellarmine University | 2,351 | 51 | 2.2% | 642 | 11 | 1.7% | — | — |
| Sullivan University | 2,535 | 9 | 0.4% | 320 | 17 | 5.3% | — | — |
| University of Pikeville | 1,596 | 54 | 3.4% | 1,014 | 3 | 0.3% | — | — |
| Frontier Nursing University | 0 | 0 | — | 2,548 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — |
| Thomas More University | 1,823 | 71 | 3.9% | 124 | 16 | 12.9% | — | — |
| Midway University | 1,687 | 49 | 2.9% | 258 | 50 | 19.4% | — | — |
| Asbury University | 1,638 | 82 | 5.0% | 304 | 4 | 1.3% | — | — |
| Asbury Theological Seminary | 0 | 0 | — | 1,715 | 288 | 16.8% | — | — |
| Kentucky State University | 1,546 | 11 | 0.7% | 143 | 35 | 24.5% | $30.0m | $13.5m |
| Spalding University | 734 | 4 | 0.5% | 821 | 5 | 0.6% | — | — |
| Berea College | 1,487 | 122 | 8.2% | — | — | — | — | — |
| Georgetown College | 1,200 | 47 | 3.9% | 263 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — |
| Centre College | 1,356 | 69 | 5.1% | — | — | — | — | — |
| Union Commonwealth University | 737 | 107 | 14.5% | 392 | 211 | 53.8% | — | — |
| Brescia University | 551 | 45 | 8.2% | 87 | 1 | 1.1% | — | — |
| Kentucky Christian University | 503 | 12 | 2.4% | 38 | 2 | 5.3% | — | — |
| Simmons College of Kentucky | 389 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — | — | — | — |
| American National University-Louisville | 240 | 0 | 0.0% | 89 | 1 | 1.1% | — | — |
| Clear Creek Baptist Bible College | 136 | 0 | 0.0% | 23 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — |
| Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary | 0 | 0 | — | 94 | 4 | 4.3% | — | — |
| Lexington Theological Seminary | 0 | 0 | — | 93 | 0 | 0.0% | — | — |
| Kentucky Mountain Bible College | 87 | 3 | 3.4% | — | — | — | — | — |
| Kentucky Community and Technical College System | 0 | 0 | — | — | — | — | $694,558 | — |
The two levels diverge most at Campbellsville University: 3.7% of its 6,853 undergraduates and 74.2% of its 5,598 graduate students. These are different admissions systems with different applicant pools, different money and different reasons to say yes, and a single state figure hides both.
2,556 of 133,814 undergraduates and 8,799 of 61,649 graduate students. IPEDS reports no graduate enrolment for 5 of these institutions; their rows show a dash rather than a zero, because the file not carrying a number is not the same as the number being none.
What the state figure is an average of
The largest graduate enrolments in Kentucky, each with its own non-resident share. Nothing here is excluded from the figures above. The point is to show what they are made of.
| Institution | Graduate students | Share of the state | Non-resident |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of the Cumberlands | 14,236 | 23.1% | 0.0% |
| University of Kentucky | 8,773 | 14.2% | 9.1% |
| University of Louisville | 5,945 | 9.6% | 9.3% |
| Campbellsville University | 5,598 | 9.1% | 74.2% |
| Northern Kentucky University | 5,034 | 8.2% | 2.6% |
| The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary | 3,239 | 5.3% | 19.2% |
One institution is moving this figure
University of the Cumberlands holds 23.1% of the graduate enrolment in Kentucky and is 0.0% non-resident. Take it out and the rest of the state is 18.6%, against 14.3% with it in. A state average is not a description of its universities when one of them is most of the state.
Practical training, and the other student visas
A student visa does not end at graduation. Optional Practical Training lets a graduate work on the same visa, and a STEM degree adds a further twenty-four months. It applies at both levels, so the undergraduate share above is not the end of the story.
No institution in Kentucky appears in SEVP’s published lists, which cover the top 100 and top 200 schools for OPT and STEM OPT. There is therefore no published practical training figure for this state. That is a fact about what the agency releases, not a statement that no one here is on OPT.
J-1 physicians. Kentucky is not in the published top twelve states for J-1 physicians in graduate medical education, which is the only state breakdown ECFMG publishes. That is an absence from a short list, not a zero.
In-state against out-of-state
Public four-year institutions, FY2024. Every foreign student pays the out-of-state rate, so this is the price attached to the non-resident column everywhere else on this page.
An out-of-state student in Kentucky is worth 2.51× an in-state one to the institution. They are 30.0% of the students and 51.8% of the tuition revenue.
| Measure | In-state | Out-of-state |
|---|---|---|
| Share of students (FTE) | 70.0% | 30.0% |
| Net tuition and fees collected per student | $7,346 | $18,454 |
| Share of tuition revenue | 48.2% | 51.8% |
Out-of-state is not the same as foreign. SHEEO counts international students and domestic students from other states in one column. This shows what a non-resident pays, never how many of them are foreign. Figures are net tuition and fee revenue per full-time-equivalent student — what the institution actually collected after its own aid, not the published price. Public four-year institutions only; medical FTE excluded. SHEEO records that Kentucky estimated part of this breakout for this year.
Every institution
Largest first by total enrolment. A dash means the institution awards none of that degree, or that no federal research money was matched to it.
| Institution | City | Control | Enrolled | Graduate | Master’s | Non-res | Doctorates | Non-res | Federal R&D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Kentucky | Lexington | public | 32,703 | 8,773 | 1,279 | 252 | 1,612 | 486 | $527.7m |
| University of Louisville | Louisville | public | 22,139 | 5,945 | 1,746 | 223 | 762 | 222 | $225.0m |
| University of the Cumberlands | Williamsburg | private nonprofit | 20,327 | 14,236 | 8,049 | 3,995 | 1,890 | 166 | — |
| Western Kentucky University | Bowling Green | public | 16,759 | 2,169 | 472 | 47 | 21 | 2 | $11.2m |
| Eastern Kentucky University | Richmond | public | 15,008 | 2,282 | 498 | 49 | — | — | $1.4m |
| Northern Kentucky University | Highland Heights | public | 14,961 | 5,034 | 360 | 81 | 66 | 0 | $3.3m |
| Campbellsville University | Campbellsville | private nonprofit | 12,451 | 5,598 | 6,595 | 6,303 | 19 | 2 | — |
| Murray State University | Murray | public | 9,841 | 1,963 | 410 | 144 | — | — | $3.6m |
| Morehead State University | Morehead | public | 8,618 | 560 | 91 | 16 | — | — | $2.3m |
| Galen College of Nursing-Louisville | Louisville | private for-profit | 4,794 | 610 | — | — | — | — | — |
| The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary | Louisville | private nonprofit | 4,243 | 3,239 | — | — | 541 | 98 | — |
| Lindsey Wilson University | Columbia | private nonprofit | 4,055 | 2,272 | 2,981 | 1,782 | 45 | 0 | — |
| Bellarmine University | Louisville | private nonprofit | 2,993 | 642 | 11 | 1 | 74 | 0 | — |
| Sullivan University | Louisville | private for-profit | 2,855 | 320 | 36 | 6 | 22 | 1 | — |
| University of Pikeville | Pikeville | private nonprofit | 2,610 | 1,014 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Frontier Nursing University | Versailles | private nonprofit | 2,548 | 2,548 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Thomas More University | Crestview Hills | private nonprofit | 1,947 | 124 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Midway University | Midway | private nonprofit | 1,945 | 258 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Asbury University | Wilmore | private nonprofit | 1,942 | 304 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Asbury Theological Seminary | Wilmore | private nonprofit | 1,715 | 1,715 | 156 | 11 | 328 | 124 | — |
| Kentucky State University | Frankfort | public | 1,689 | 143 | 33 | 3 | — | — | $13.5m |
| Spalding University | Louisville | private nonprofit | 1,555 | 821 | 177 | 0 | 114 | 1 | — |
| Berea College | Berea | private nonprofit | 1,487 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Georgetown College | Georgetown | private nonprofit | 1,463 | 263 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Centre College | Danville | private nonprofit | 1,356 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Union Commonwealth University | Barbourville | private nonprofit | 1,129 | 392 | 184 | 132 | — | — | — |
| Brescia University | Owensboro | private nonprofit | 638 | 87 | 16 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Kentucky Christian University | Grayson | private nonprofit | 541 | 38 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Simmons College of Kentucky | Louisville | private nonprofit | 389 | — | 2 | 0 | — | — | — |
| American National University-Louisville | Louisville | private for-profit | 329 | 89 | 43 | 0 | — | — | — |
| Clear Creek Baptist Bible College | Pineville | private nonprofit | 159 | 23 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary | Louisville | private nonprofit | 94 | 94 | — | — | 15 | 0 | — |
| Lexington Theological Seminary | Lexington | private nonprofit | 93 | 93 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Kentucky Mountain Bible College | Jackson | private nonprofit | 87 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Kentucky Community and Technical College System | Versailles | public | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Degrees are pooled over 2021–2025. Enrolment and federal money are the most recent year in the file. “Non-res” means a student here on a temporary visa, almost always F-1 or J-1. A green card holder is not counted in it.
How few institutions this is
Of the 35 institutions in Kentucky, 13 award a research doctorate at all, and the largest two award 63.6% of them. A state’s graduate pipeline is a much smaller thing than its list of colleges.
| Institution | Research doctorates | Non-resident | Share | Share of the state’s doctorates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of the Cumberlands | 1,890 | 166 | 8.8% | 34.3% |
| University of Kentucky | 1,612 | 486 | 30.1% | 29.3% |
| University of Louisville | 762 | 222 | 29.1% | 13.8% |
| The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary | 541 | 98 | 18.1% | 9.8% |
| Asbury Theological Seminary | 328 | 124 | 37.8% | 6.0% |
| Spalding University | 114 | 1 | 0.9% | 2.1% |
| Bellarmine University | 74 | 0 | 0.0% | 1.3% |
| Northern Kentucky University | 66 | 0 | 0.0% | 1.2% |
| Lindsey Wilson University | 45 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.8% |
| Sullivan University | 22 | 1 | 4.5% | 0.4% |
| Western Kentucky University | 21 | 2 | 9.5% | 0.4% |
| Campbellsville University | 19 | 2 | 10.5% | 0.3% |
| Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary | 15 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.3% |
The foreign share of graduate students, where the survey reaches
The NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates asks institutions directly, and it covers 7 of the 35 institutions in Kentucky. It is a different measure from the degree counts above: enrolled students rather than degrees awarded.
| Institution | Doctoral students foreign | Master’s students foreign |
|---|---|---|
| University of Louisville | 46.3% | 20.7% |
| University of Kentucky | 42.1% | 17.5% |
| Western Kentucky University | —% | 11.2% |
| Eastern Kentucky University | —% | 12.2% |
| Northern Kentucky University | 0.0% | 23.3% |
| Murray State University | —% | 28.3% |
| Morehead State University | —% | 0.0% |
University of Louisville
The highest foreign share of doctoral students in the state, at 46.3%. It is not the largest institution here and it is not the one with the most federal money. Size and share are different questions, and a state page that ranked only by size would not show this.
What the state itself puts in
State appropriations per full-time-equivalent student, from the SHEEO finance survey, against the change in the foreign share of graduate enrolment over the same window.
| Measure | First year | Last year | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| State appropriations per FTE student | $9,584 | $9,227 | -3.7% |
| Foreign share of graduate enrolment | 8.0% | 7.5% | -0.5 pts |
These two rows move for their own reasons. Nothing here shows that one caused the other, and the page does not say it did.
Department by department
The dissertation corpus reaches 2 institutions in this state, covering 48 departments. 20 of them are majority non-resident.
| Institution | Department | Doctorates | Non-resident | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U Kentucky | Plant Pathology/Phytopathology | 16 | 14 | 87.5% |
| U Kentucky | Materials Engineering | 38 | 30 | 78.9% |
| U Kentucky | Electrical and Electronics Engineering | 53 | 39 | 73.6% |
| U Kentucky | Statistics, General | 56 | 41 | 73.2% |
| U Kentucky | Computer and Information Sciences, General | 71 | 51 | 71.8% |
| U Kentucky | Mining and Mineral Engineering | 24 | 17 | 70.8% |
| U Kentucky | Mechanical Engineering | 70 | 49 | 70.0% |
| U Kentucky | Chemical Engineering | 56 | 36 | 64.3% |
| U Kentucky | Physics and Astronomy | 28 | 17 | 60.7% |
| U Kentucky | Chemistry, General | 100 | 58 | 58.0% |
| U Kentucky | Civil Engineering, General | 41 | 21 | 51.2% |
| U Kentucky | Agricultural Engineering | 15 | 7 | 46.7% |
| U Kentucky | Physics, General | 43 | 19 | 44.2% |
| U Kentucky | Toxicology | 32 | 14 | 43.8% |
| U Kentucky | Entomology | 23 | 9 | 39.1% |
| U Kentucky | Nutrition Sciences | 26 | 9 | 34.6% |
| U Kentucky | Biology/Biological Sciences, General | 48 | 16 | 33.3% |
| U Kentucky | Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering | 28 | 8 | 28.6% |
| U Kentucky | Biochemistry | 44 | 12 | 27.3% |
| U Kentucky | Molecular Pharmacology | 16 | 4 | 25.0% |
| U Kentucky | Mathematics, General | 73 | 17 | 23.3% |
| U Kentucky | Educational Psychology | 16 | 3 | 18.8% |
| U Kentucky | Medical Microbiology and Bacteriology | 17 | 3 | 17.6% |
| U Kentucky | Physiology, General | 42 | 5 | 11.9% |
| U Kentucky | Experimental Psychology | 45 | 3 | 6.7% |
| U Kentucky | Counseling Psychology | 42 | 2 | 4.8% |
| U Kentucky | School Psychology | 21 | 1 | 4.8% |
| U Kentucky | Clinical Psychology | 45 | 0 | 0.0% |
| U Louisville | Industrial Engineering | 28 | 24 | 85.7% |
| U Louisville | Computer Engineering, General | 48 | 40 | 83.3% |
| U Louisville | Civil Engineering, General | 27 | 21 | 77.8% |
| U Louisville | Electrical and Electronics Engineering | 46 | 35 | 76.1% |
| U Louisville | Physics, General | 27 | 19 | 70.4% |
| U Louisville | Biostatistics | 25 | 17 | 68.0% |
| U Louisville | Chemical Engineering | 27 | 18 | 66.7% |
| U Louisville | Chemistry, General | 65 | 43 | 66.2% |
| U Louisville | Mechanical Engineering | 35 | 23 | 65.7% |
| U Louisville | Pharmacology and Toxicology | 61 | 20 | 32.8% |
| U Louisville | Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies, Other | 22 | 7 | 31.8% |
| U Louisville | Physiology, General | 31 | 8 | 25.8% |
| U Louisville | Applied Mathematics, General | 28 | 7 | 25.0% |
| U Louisville | Medical Microbiology and Bacteriology | 47 | 11 | 23.4% |
| U Louisville | Biochemistry | 33 | 7 | 21.2% |
| U Louisville | Anatomy | 24 | 5 | 20.8% |
| U Louisville | Biology/Biological Sciences, General | 46 | 8 | 17.4% |
| U Louisville | Biomedical Sciences, General | 64 | 8 | 12.5% |
| U Louisville | Experimental Psychology | 24 | 3 | 12.5% |
| U Louisville | Clinical Psychology | 44 | 1 | 2.3% |
From the dissertation corpus, which is built from what universities publish about their own graduates. It covers the institutions on this site, not every institution in the state, so it is a floor.
What is not published for a state this size
Two of the measures this site uses elsewhere do not exist at this scale, and the reason is the same in both cases: the agency publishes a ranked extract rather than the whole file.
- Practical training is not published here. SEVP releases the top 100 and top 200 schools for OPT and STEM OPT, not every school. An institution outside those lists has no published figure at all. Its absence is a fact about the list, not about the institution, and it must never be read as a zero.
- Student visa counts are not published by state. DHS reports SEVIS records nationally and names a few states per region in its commentary. For most states it publishes a percentage change and no count, so the number of foreign students physically in a state cannot be read off the federal release.
- Enrolment is the measure that does exist. IPEDS asks every institution directly, which is why this page is built from it. It counts students enrolled, not visas issued, and the two are different questions.
Method and limits
- Non-resident means here on a temporary visa. IPEDS defines it as a person “who is not a citizen or national of the United States and who is in this country on a visa or temporary basis and does not have the right to remain indefinitely.” A green card holder is therefore never counted here. Neither is a refugee or an asylee. Those students are reported in the race and ethnicity categories alongside citizens. For students the category is overwhelmingly F-1 and J-1.
- It is not ethnicity and not country of origin. A US-born citizen of any background is never non-resident. The status is recorded when the student enrols, for the enrolment figures, and when the degree is awarded, for the degree counts. These files cannot be split any other way.
- Degrees are pooled over 2021–2025, because a single year at a small institution moves on one student.
- Enrolment and awards are different measures and will not agree. One counts people on a given day; the other counts degrees conferred over five years.
- Federal money is matched to a campus, and a system that reports centrally can carry money its branches spend.
- This page shows composition, not displacement. It records who received the degrees. It does not show that anyone was kept out, and nothing here should be read that way.
Built by scripts/build_state_pages.py from
institution_profiles.json,
state_funding_and_enrolment.json
and university_distribution.json.
Compare the country on the national overview.