Northern Kentucky University does not lose money when students graduate early.

NKU currently has 15,738 students who generate approximately $98 million in student tuition and scholarship fees per year.
“Even though students who graduate early are no longer paying tuition, the university no longer has the expenses that go along with the enrolled student,” said Kenneth Kline, senior director of the budget office. “NKU as a non-profit institution does not make money on most of our students when you consider our total costs.”
According to the institutional research office, the average student who graduates from NKU will spend six years in college. Only 8 percent of students will graduate in four years. This makes a single NKU Kentucky resident student worth approximately $46,000 to the institution, paying about $7,600 a year. It also means non-residents are worth about $90,000 and paying about $14,000 per year.

Students who live in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, Indiana and Ohio are worth in between those amounts, as they are recipients of the metro rate.
“It costs us a lot of money to educate our students,” Kline said. “The longer the students stay here, the more it costs us.”
According to Kline, the university may lose money, but it depends on the tuition rate, the number of classes students are enrolled in, the services students take advantage of and other student-associated costs.

Sophomore electronic media and broadcasting major Isa Blair said, “I’m trying to not stay in school for too long.”
Blair said she has a Ky. war veterans’ dependant loan from Kentucky’s Department of Veterans Affairs, which will only pay for 45 months of her education.
Blair changed her graduation date to Dec. 2014 after she added a second minor. She will have to pay out of pocket for her last semester of college.
“Government tries to encourage students to graduate on time,” student financial assistant Travis Hall said. He said it is in students’ best interest to graduate on time, because then students won’t have to pay more money for the extra years they need to be in school to graduate.

Hall also said there are different types of financial aid and loans, but when students set a year to graduate and “run out of time” and don’t graduate on time, students cannot apply for a financial aid extension.

“The final impact of students graduating early is not an issue of concern for us,” Kline said.