Kentucky legislation seeks to adjust the Kentucky Education Excellence Scholarship amount for the first time since its creation in 1998.
The proposed bill, House Bill 130, would adjust how much is awarded to students yearly to reflect the current economy. Representative Chad Aull, D-Fayette County, and Representative Deanna Gordon, R-Madison County, sponsored the bill, which would allow KEES to mirror the Consumer Price Index. The CPI run by the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks changes in the price of goods and services over time.
Aull said he has seen a drastic change in the price of college tuition and associated prices in the last 27 years. He wants this issue to see a long-term solution that won’t require a revisit in the future.
“It’s more than time that we try to start making up some of that difference with an increase to the KEES formula,” Aull said.
The idea of adjusting money based on the CPI is not new. Social security checks follow a very similar structure, with each yearly check delivered to U.S. citizens being adjusted to the current statistics shown by the CPI.
“I believe we should do the same thing with the KEES awards,” Aull said in an interview with the Herald. “That way we don’t have to come back and have this conversation in another 25 (to) 27 years.”
KEES is administered to students of Kentucky via the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority and funded through Kentucky Lottery proceeds. Students are awarded various amounts of money to use at in-state and certain out-of-state universities and institutions based on high school academic performance. Aull said that KEES is meant to be used at in-state universities in order to keep the “best and brightest” of Kentucky, in Kentucky.
According to CPI inflation calculator, in2013dollars, the dollar saw an average inflation rate of 2.49 percent each year from 1998 to 2026. $2,500 in 1998 (the maximum amount a student can earn from KEES) is worth $4,971.20 today.
“When KEES came out in 1998, that amount of money was a pretty significant amount of money,” Aull said.
In-state tuition per semester at WKU was $960 while out-of-state tuition was $2,880 for undergraduate students in 1998, according to the “Fact Book 2,000” published by the university at the turn of the millennium. For the fall 2025 and spring 2026 semesters at WKU, in-state tuition per semester costs $6,036, while out-of-state students pay $13,500.
In 2001, the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville had an in-state annual undergraduate tuition of $1,867 and $1,977, respectively, according to the Courier Journal. Now their annual in-state tuition is $6,954 and $6,695.
“We want folks to start off their adult life in a positive light, in a positive manner, and hopefully not be carrying quite as much debt as they otherwise would be,” Aull said.
House Bill 130 will carry a positive impact to universities, Aull said, with more money entering Kentucky’s higher education system. This could also result in increased funding for university programs.
“’If we want to keep our best here, then we need to get them to come,” Aull said.
Reed Elmore, a freshman psychological sciences major, said House Bill 130 would be beneficial for students seeking higher education. He grew up in Grayson County, Kentucky, where he said he saw what a “lack of opportunity” could do to a community. He described the county as a small town community, offering little aid for higher education outside of scholarships.
“Whenever you have those opportunities, from financial aid, from KEES, from different scholarships, it really does make a big impact on you,” Elmore said.
Scholarships are the reason Elmore can attend WKU. He said his background would have been a detriment to obtaining his goals of one day pursuing graduate school and clinical psychology work.
“I feel like a lot of other students also have the same feeling as me,” Elmore said.
House Bill 130 is currently awaiting a committee assignment, then it must work its way up to Governor Andy Beshear’s desk before it becomes a reality. Aull suspects that if the bill does go into law, action towards adjustments will begin in June of this year.
