On Friday, June 13, the University of Kentucky held its Board of Trustees meeting discussing potential new changes for the 2025-2026 academic year, including the establishment of Champions Blue, LLC, and a multi-million-dollar budget increase.
The meeting took place on Friday, June 13. The agenda included launching the athletics program into a new era, appointing new deans and breaking down the projected student enrollment and budget for the upcoming year.
Athletics
Among the most costly changes coming this year is the establishment of Champions Blue, LLC, the university’s new holding company for its athletics program.
The trustees approved a plan to lend Champions Blue $141 million to get the new program off the ground and fund major facility projects.
“We are proposing a new strategic governance structure unlike any in the country to incentivize innovation to ensure long-term success,” Capilouto said.
UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said Champions Blue is being created to keep up with changes happening in the world of college athletics, including the recent House v. NCAA settlement that will enable colleges to pay student athletes starting this fall.
According to Barnhart, UK will be able to spend “approximately $20.5 million toward annual scholarship benefits or revenue sharing benefits for student athletes, in addition to current benefits.”
He said that Champions Blue will help the university navigate the new college athletics landscape.
“This system allows us to have an opportunity to be flexible and readily adapt to what’s coming at us,” Barnhart said. “It enables us to lock some new revenue streams as the traditional methods of revenue have been slowed down just a little bit in college athletics, and television contracts and conference revenue sharing is beginning to change the pace a little bit.”
However, the financial benefits of Champions Blue aren’t expected to come immediately. It’s planned that Champions Blue will operate at a net loss of nearly $31 million over the next two fiscal years, according to a presentation given during the University Athletics Committee meeting on June 12.
“We are projecting in fiscal year 25 as well as fiscal year 26, that expenses will exceed revenues,” Capilouto said. “That is what we anticipated. That is the plan. The three-and-a-half-year larger plan starts to invest resources to turn the ship, to provide an opportunity for us to have a positive margin again.”
Despite the projected deficit, Capilouto said the funds will come back around over time, going back to the university and, in turn, the Commonwealth.
“Success here is measured not in banners or trophies alone, but in how we serve this state. And we do so most significantly by preparing these young people for lives of meaning and purpose,” Capilouto said. “While this era of change and challenge is specific to our athletics program, what is not new are our principles that have guided us before. At this university, time and again, we invest in what matters.”
In the case of Champions Blue, this means five athletic-related capital projects, for which the trustees approved a $110 million investment to support.
These projects include $15 million for maintenance at Kroger Field, $13 million to renovate corner suites and elevators at Kroger Field, $8 million for design and infrastructure upgrades, including a new West End Zone Club and Wi-Fi improvements, at Kroger Field, $5 million to improve UK’s soccer and softball facilities and issuing a new request for information to develop a “Fan Zone” on campus.
At the Board of Trustees meeting, the group of individuals who will be overseeing these projects, along with the rest of Champions Blue, LLC’s endeavors, was announced.
Champions Blue’s board of governors consists of university representatives, including Capilouto and Barnhart, as well as external sports and industry advisors. It will have seven voting members and two non-voting members, listed here.
Budget projections for the 2025-2026 academic year
According to UK President Eli Capilouto, the university’s budget for the next fiscal year will increase from $8.4 billion to $8.6 billion, following the trustees’ approval.
Capilouto said he can attribute this “significant” budget, the largest in UK’s history, to an “investment in and commitment to the future of our Commonwealth.”
In the university’s strategy to increase its budget, Capilouto said that a necessary tuition increase of 3% was needed.
“It proposes a modest increase in tuition and mandatory fees designed to hold down costs and increase access to the distinctive education that only we provide for Kentucky,” Capilouto said.
This rate of increase is higher than any at UK since 2018, according to Finance Committee Recommendation records obtained from the UK Board of Trustees website.
Capilouto said 90% of UK resident undergraduate students received some form of financial aid they did not have to pay back, and 50% of them were able to graduate without debt in 2024, suggesting the University’s affordability amid tuition fluctuations.
“I think it illustrates or underscores what we’ve been able to do in holding down costs and making that education more affordable,” UK Spokesperson Jay Blanton said.
The average rate of change in tuition has been kept under 3% for the past six years, according to Capilouto.
“If you look at what’s been happening to the rate of tuition over the last several years, the University of Kentucky’s got a really good record of holding down those costs while still increasing financial aid,” Blanton said.
To maintain this “record,” the University of Kentucky plans to allocate $187 million of its $8.6 billion budget to financial aid, according to Blanton.
This is $12 million more than last year, continuing UK’s trend of increasing institutional financial aid as student enrollment increases.
Capilouto said roughly $80 million will be allocated for additional compensation and benefits for UK faculty and staff.
“There’s risk in that (faculty and staff compensation) too, given the uncertainty of federal budgets and the unknowns of what lies ahead, but taking care of our people is a must,” Capilouto said. “It is how we take care of Kentucky.”
To stay competitive and hire the best faculty, the university must offer competitive salaries, which is the reason for the budgeted increase, according to Blanton.
In addition to compensation, more than $500 million of the budget will be allocated to research funding and expenditures, according to Capilouto.
The state government currently funds research, but Capilouto said it anticipates reducing funding by approximately 10% this fiscal year. According to Capilouto, this decline is driving an increase in research spending for UK.
Projected student enrollment
Capilouto predicts a fourth consecutive year of record-breaking student enrollment for the 2025-2026 academic year, with 6,800 first-time, first-year students.
This will also be the fourth consecutive class with over 6,000 students, Capilouto said.
Enrollment at the university has increased by nearly 60% over the past decade, bringing the state within a few percentage points of the 2030 Kentucky goal that 60% of Kentuckians will hold a college or post-secondary education degree, according to Capilouto.
“UK is driving those numbers and establishes that the statistics are not bragging points suitable for frame,” Capilouto said. “They are milestones of progress or a journey yet unfinished.”
New leadership
During the Board of Trustees meeting, the trustees approved several new leadership positions across the university’s campus for the 2025-2026 academic year.
The Trustees approved Nick Pace as the new Dean for the College of Education after Pace was appointed in March 2025.
Pace previously served as Interim Dean and professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Education from 2023 to the present, where he helped grow the college’s undergraduate and graduate enrollment for the first time in eight years.
Along with Pace, the trustees approved five new appointments to the Mining Engineering Foundation Board of Directors for a two-year term, which will end on June 30, 2027.
John Brown, Jared Curry, Paul Horn, Russell Mott, and Karen Rose were recommended by Rudolph G. Buchheit, the dean of the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.
The 2025-2026 fiscal year will officially begin on July 1, 2025. The final budget can be viewed here.
