State funding for Kentucky’s public universities has declined by more than 30 percent since 2008. Since an engineering education costs more to provide than most academic majors, state funding cuts affect engineering disproportionately to other fields. As a result, it would be impossible for the College of Engineering to provide a world-class engineering educational experience without the availability of fees to provide additional funding. As we set these fees, we seek to balance the need for the necessary funds to deliver our educational programs with the need to keep the cost of attending the University of Kentucky affordable for our students.
Yes. The money collected from the Engineering Fee is passed to the College of Engineering.
At UK, we use all of the collected fees to provide services to students. Items supported from the fee include materials, equipment and staff support for student instructional laboratories; an Engineering Career Development Center to help students find jobs, internships and co-ops; student computer labs with engineering software and IT staff to support the equipment; the eStudio, which helps students develop their communication skills; academic tutoring; professional advising and scholarship coordination. Each of these services is significant for our college and our students; however, each comes with a cost. The fee is small compared to the benefit of the services provided.
The current tuition and fee structure can be found on the University’s website. The engineering fee charged to each student is based on the number of engineering courses taken during the academic year. An average engineering student will take 6 credit hours per semester in their freshman year.