Northern Kentucky University

I was at NKU many years ago, graduating in 1999. My professors in the physics department were amazing! I knew they all cared! I took an Astronomy class with one of the coolest, kindest and smartest professors I had ever encountered. After that course, that I had taken on a whim!!!, That class hooked me; I fell in love with space and physics! I could not get enough! I got busy and graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics! My experience at NKU could not have been more wonderful! Thank you NKU!! 💛

Enjoyed Parents/Family Day with my daughter! Got to meet sorority sisters and paint picture frames while enjoying light refreshments at the University Center! The Campus just keeps growing!

Terrible online nursing program from administration through professors. This is my third time advancing my degree, and I had not experienced this level of poor leadership and communication until this school. I highly recommend a different institution.

This would be one star had it not been for my professors who, for the most part, were pretty great people who were/are great at their jobs and who had to deal with the same administrative BS as I did. They all need raises for dealing with admin as long as they have. To get right into it, The top administration here is a mess. There is a mandatory campus recreation fee that you can't opt out of even if you have never been to the the rec center. What happened was they wanted to build a rec center but no one was buying memberships to get in. Their solution? Require their students to pay for a membership every semester. By the time I graduate, I will have paid $1000 for a rec center that I've not been to once. I don't know why they decided to invest millions in a new rec center if they didn't know for sure that their students would use it. Another example: one of their last presidents was straight-up abusing school funds and instead of firing him and suing him, they paid him $1,000,000 to leave?!? Like go get your money back and stop charging us fees for breathing on campus!? Additionally, their policies are out-right awful. For example: I'm a student that receives tuition assistance through my work; it takes a while to get to the school and NKU knows this. Do they provide the itemized bill earlier in order to apply for TA sooner? No. Do they make is easier for my work to contact them to let them know my TA is on the way? No. You have until the first day of classes to pay your entire bill or you get kicked from your classes and the reinstatement fee is $100. To avoid this, you can get on the payment plan which is $90; I literally have to pay them money for me to be able to pay them more money. To avoid getting kicked out of classes my first week I have to pay $190. There used to be a two-week grace period but they removed it for whatever reason. Another example is their parking pass policy, it's annoying that they increase the price every year, but with the cost of yearly maintenance it at least makes sense. The thing that particularly bothers me is that they charge their teachers to park. They literally have to be there, and unless they want to walk a half mile every morning they're stuck buying a pass. When I started going to NKU, parking was $286 a year for students and they charged their teachers $400... Things constantly don't work on campus. There are the usual vending machines and school computers not working which isn't that big a deal, but the most frustrating example is the "NKU All Card". You have to pay $45-$60 bucks a semester for a mandatory food budget but whenever you try to use it at the student union or any of the vending machines, the All Card gets declined. This happens even if you have enough money on the card to cover what you're getting. If something goes wrong (as it most likely will), dealing with the staff is hit or miss. Sometimes you'll get the most condescending Karen who looks down on you because you don't know the myriad of the school's useless policies. Other times, you'll talk to a talk a genuinely kind person that understands your frustration and really tries to help. One example being that at my last major, I couldn't get into any classes because I was kind of behind on credits so I was in one of the last groups to be able to register for classes. Now, this part was my fault and I totally accept that, what wasn't helpful is when I reached out to my adviser and department head for help, they sent me nothing but platitudes, no solutions. If I had stuck with that major, I would have graduated two years later than I originally planned. At the end of the day, going to school at NKU is like getting your groceries at the dollar store. It's not the best option, heck, it's not even a good option, but it will satisfy the basic need at hand. If you want to open up more options in your life, try a trade or community college first, don't assume that you need a college degree to be successful in life. It's not worth the fees and the headache to deal with administration of a college like NKU.

NKU is a fantastic university and I'm proud to day I'm an alum!!!! My latest experience, though, was for the GRAD Cincinnati Summer Institute. We were able to allow 30 high school students from Cincinnati Public Schools to stay on campus in the dorms and immerse themselves on campus. The students were there for 3 days and 2 nights, experienced several academic programs, and ate their meals in the dining hall. The GRAD Cincinnati Summer Institute was a great success, and we are lucky to have such a great partner in NKU. They really are a first class institution!!!!!