In the strongest stand against Gov. Matt Bevin’s proposed budget cuts for higher education, President Eli Capilouto told a House subcommittee that all of UK would feel the budget’s “chilling” effects.

Capilouto told the House Postsecondary Education Budget Subcommittee about UK’s financial importance to Kentucky, and how the cuts would hamper its ability to teach and conduct research.

“This is your university, your university for Kentucky, and in your very palms rests our future,” Capilouto said. “We can’t protect any part of our campus in the face of these draconian cuts.”

In a campus-wide email sent Thursday, Capilouto also criticized Bevin’s plan to implement performance-based funding, which would divide a pool of money between universities that focus on STEM education.

“It needs to be done transparently, carefully, and in partnership with Kentucky’s public colleges and universities,” Capilouto wrote in the email.

Bevin’s budget would cut state appropriations for public universities nearly across the board by 9 percent. Northern Kentucky University and Western Kentucky University were the only ones spared, with WKU taking just a 5.5 percent hit for 2017 and NKU getting a 2 percent increase.

Read more at the Lexington Herald-Leader