Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) published data showing that students with considerable unmet financial need are about 20 percentage points less likely to return for their sophomore year in the September edition of the Student Access and Success newsletter.

The Council on Postsecondary Education is Kentucky's higher education coordinating agency committed to strengthening the state by increasing educational attainment to 60% of the population with a postsecondary credential by 2030. Our work improving public higher education is based upon the following priorities: - Increasing student readiness and enrollment in postsecondary education. - Reducing financial barriers to college enrollment and completion and improving the public’s understanding of how to pay for college. - Raising persistence and completion rates, facilitating better transfer pathways and ensuring and academic offerings are high-quality, relevant and inclusive. - Improving the career outcomes of postsecondary graduates and strengthening the state's research capacity. - Building public and state investment in postsecondary education. In addition to work set out by the strategic agenda, the Council has several legislated duties, which include creating the biennial budget request for postsecondary education, implementing the performance funding model, setting and approving tuition rate caps, and developing policy around admissions and academic programs. Beyond public higher education, the Council also licenses non-profit and for-profit colleges that offer four-year bachelor’s degrees to operate in Kentucky.