Faced with declining state funding, the University of Kentucky wants to attract more out-of-state students to fund an ambitious expansion of university facilities and its athletics department. University President Eli Capiuloto believes that better dorms and athletic programs will advance one of the school’s highest priorities: attracting a larger number of out-of-state students paying higher tuition.
College of Medicine at University of Kentucky is an exception, unlike the rest of the university it does not have to advertise to get a lot of applicants. Over the last decade, medical schools are becoming very popular destinations among the youth due glut of lawyers and pharmacists and a competitive job market. The medical schools also benefitted from higher demand for doctors from the expanding healthcare system. These trends had been spurring a very large number of nonresident applicants to the UK Medical School from willing to pay the hefty $57,000 in annual tuition – almost three times what Kentucky residents pay.
Funding is not the only issue University of Kentucky Medical School had been battling. Attracting and retaining an adequate number of black medical students also a problem and the UK College of Medicine is facing a lot of criticism about its minority recruitment policies. The numbers of black medical students at UK were so low that NAACP had to sit down with medical school officials to address the issue.