-21%
Kentucky State University · Public bachelor's-predominant peer
10-year earnings at Kentucky State University are 21% below the public bachelor's-predominant peer median ($36.4k vs $45.8k).
State hub · Kentucky · vintage 2025-05
Kentucky Colleges
Earnings, debt, completion, and default rates for every Title-IV institution in Kentucky — and every program where federal data is published. Sourced from College Scorecard, IPEDS, and Treasury tax records.
ANOMALY ENGINE · NOTABLE SIGNALS
What the data flags across Kentucky
Top signals rolled up across Kentuckyinstitutions — a mix of warnings and improvements, alternating so the page isn't skewed in either direction. Detectors: short-arc shift (recent 3-year window), earnings trend, peer outlier, completion drop, enrollment cliff, and debt-to-earnings warning. Multi-decade shifts are reported separately in the Long Arc section.
-17%
Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College · Public certificate-predominant peer
10-year earnings at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College are 17% below the public certificate-predominant peer median ($29.5k vs $35.7k).
-16%
Hazard Community and Technical College · Public certificate-predominant peer
10-year earnings at Hazard Community and Technical College are 16% below the public certificate-predominant peer median ($29.9k vs $35.7k).
-14%
Somerset Community College · Public certificate-predominant peer
10-year earnings at Somerset Community College are 14% below the public certificate-predominant peer median ($30.8k vs $35.7k).
-10%
Maysville Community and Technical College · Public certificate-predominant peer
10-year earnings at Maysville Community and Technical College are 10% below the public certificate-predominant peer median ($32.2k vs $35.7k).
-8%
Big Sandy Community and Technical College · Public certificate-predominant peer
10-year earnings at Big Sandy Community and Technical College are 8% below the public certificate-predominant peer median ($33.0k vs $35.7k).
SECTION 01 · STATE OVERVIEW
The numbers
Statewide aggregates across Kentucky Title-IV institutions. Earnings are 10 years after entry, computed by Treasury tax records on federally aided students. Sparklines trace the federally available history.
74
Title-IV main campuses3,234
with published outcomes$37,114
across institutions49.7%
median across institutions173,377
latest historical vintage$11,370
median across institutionsSECTION 02 · LONG ARC
How Kentucky has shifted
Federally available history. Sparkline coverage varies by metric — IPEDS publishes some series only after 2009 and others only before.
Statewide undergraduate enrollment, all Title-IV institutions.
Median completion rate within 150% of expected time.
+44%
Statewide · completion · 150% rose
34.9% → 50.2%
+29%
Statewide · undergrad enrollment rose
134,079 → 173,377
+328%
Statewide · in-state tuition rose
$2,655 → $11,370
SECTION 03 · INSTITUTIONS
37 institutions with 1,000+ undergrads, ranked by 10-year earnings
Click any column header to sort. Click any row for the full institution page. Heat-shading runs against the displayed values; em-dash means the cell was suppressed by federal privacy rules. Institutions with fewer than 1,000undergrads are filtered out here — small specialty schools (cosmetology, barbering, single-credential institutes) arithmetically dominate the extremes on every metric and aren't comparable to larger schools.
Showing 37 of 74 Title-IV institutions · Public 24 · Private 28 · For-profit 22
SECTION 04 · TOP BY EARNINGS
Highest 10-year median earnings
Treasury earnings, 10 years after entry. Includes non-completers and out-of-state movers in the cohort.
SECTION 05 · TOP BY COMPLETION
Highest 150%-time completion
Share of first-time, full-time freshmen who complete within 150% of expected time (IPEDS GR). Filtered to institutions with more than 1,000undergrads — tiny cohorts skew toward 100% and aren't comparable to larger schools.
BY CITY
All 43 Kentucky cities with colleges
Each city has its own hub with the colleges located there. Alphabetical.
- Ashland
- Barbourville
- Belfry
- Berea
- Bowling Green
- Campbellsville
- Columbia
- Crestview Hills
- Cumberland
- Danville
- Elizabethtown
- Florence
- Frankfort
- Georgetown
- Glasgow
- Grayson
- Hazard
- Henderson
- Highland Heights
- Hopkinsville
- Jackson
- Lexington
- Louisville
- Madisonville
- Manchester
- Maysville
- Midway
- Morehead
- Murray
- Newport
- Owensboro
- Paducah
- Paintsville
- Pikeville
- Pineville
- Pippa Passes
- Prestonsburg
- Richmond
- Somerset
- Versailles
- Whitesburg
- Williamsburg
- Wilmore
METHODOLOGY
What these numbers are — and aren't
Earnings are median tax-record earnings for federally aided students, 4–10 years after first enrollment. They describe cohorts, not future outcomes — and they include non-completers and out-of-state movers. Selection bias is real: high-earning programs may attract higher-earning students. We surface descriptive numbers, not causal claims.