Eastern Kentucky University President Michael Benson says the Richmond school’s graduation rate has improved, but is still not good enough.
Benson told participants at Tuesday convocation EKU is now seeing more than 50% of its students graduating in six years. The Eastern President says a lot of time and effort is spent on student recruitment, but retention is a major priority. “Our retention rate needs to be up in the 80 to 85 percent. It’s in the low 70’s right now, or mid 70’s rather. And so, to retain those students and then graduate them is something that we’re really laser like focused right now,” said Benson.
Benson says an implementation team is working on moving forward with a number of budget reduction actions enacted this past spring. That included decreasing workforce numbers and eliminating a number of academic programs. He says it’s important now to invest in high demand areas at EKU, which he hopes could include a raise for employees.
Benson would like to see some modification in the performance based funding formula adopted by the general assembly in the spring of 2017. The EKU president says the most recent performance funding scoring saw the University of Kentucky exceeding the benchmarks in all 11 categories. “We’re got to tweak it a little bit because when you have one institution that’s the outlier and getting 11 out of 11 and nobody else is even half that close. I think something needs to be done to advantage the less advantaged institutions,” noted Benson.
Benson said he recognizes the gains which have been made at the University of Kentucky, but still believes changes in the funding formula are needed.
Benson says physical improvements over the last year included the opening of the phase two science building, a dining hall, and parking garage.
