My son has been accepted to UK and thanks to him being a National Hispanic Schoolar, he received the Patterson. Scholarship. I’m wondering if there are other patents of UK’s Patterson Scholarship recipients that can share what you had to pay out of pockets for the first two years.
Fees. Maybe $150 per semester? Books. Health instance. $200 per month? Transportation to school & back home. Tax on room & board portion of the scholarship — paid by the student but at the parents tax bracket rate.
Nevertheless we consider this “next to free” for an undergrad education.
My son also received the Patterson scholarship for National Hispanic and in looking at costs it seems to vary depending on the dorm type and food plan chosen. The 10000.00 stipend/yr does not seem to cover the entire cost of room and board for the year if (like my son) they want to be involved with an LLP which uses a more expensive dorm. But I could be wrong as I have not seen final costs yet either.
Midwest67, what is the Health instance? I can’t find any reference to that fee on their website.
We are OOS, and our health insurance at home would not offer full coverage in Lexington, so we purchased the UK student insurance (required?). About $200 a month. The coverage is very good—better than our HMO plan back home.
Sorry I am fuzzy about the details. Our student is a junior and she manages her life. She lives off campus now, has a part-time job & lives there year round. Freshman year seems like a decade ago.
The Patterson was about the best thing that ever happened to our family. Our in-state options are expensive.
My daughter was offered the Patterson as well. She visited the school last fall and really like it. She has applied to 17 schools and is still waiting to hear back from some of them, but UK is in the top 3, especially with this generous offer! I’m glad to hear that your daughter has done so well at UK. 
Not only was the Patterson an amazing opportunity, in addition, UK was generous with AP & CLEP credits.
Our D took a couple winter intercession courses online (not covered by the scholarship) her freshman year, and it bumped her up to sophomore standing.
The benefit, for her, is she will have completed her major this year. She has the option to graduate in 3 years, but is choosing to add another major (or minor, I forget) and graduate in 4. The result is she will study abroad, work on grad school applications and have a chill senior year.
We encouraged her to take the 4th year because it is nearly free.
I mention this because as you compare the COA of various schools, graduating in 3 years might be an option & cost saver, or a welcome “easy” last year.
My daughter is a second semester Freshman (although status as a Sophomore due to AP & Clep Credit) & the Patterson has been such an amazing opportunity. She was accepted into every school she applied (no real reach’s) with merit scholarship money at most & she chose University of Kentucky after a 2nd visit. She is on the pre-med track & going into medical school with 0 debt was, we feel, an intelligent decision on her part.
With lab fees, books, meal plan etc I think we paid about $500 last semester but she does also have a small scholarship from College of Agriculture. She was too late when applying for housing to get into Lewis but she is in Haggin and loves it. She will be in a 4 bedroom apartment on campus, University Flats, next year. Of course, plane tickets out of Lexington to NM are pretty expensive, but the airport is super convenient. When she takes her car next year she has the option of flying out of Cincinatti or Louisville also.
Her best friend is at Stanford & paying $70000 a year so this is a pretty good deal I would say :).
The 10K does not quite cover room and board. Also, if your child is in a program like Engineering there will be a considerable number of fees. My son was a freshman this past year, and fee for engineering courses was $159/credit hour.
The other big expense we found was just feeding our son. While he was on the all you can eat meal plan, he’s simply at that age where he can’t get enough food. After a while he got bored with eating at the 90 and Champ’s Kitchen, and starting eating out more and more. As a former high school athlete he also found the gym to be quite good, and really started working out. That just increased his need for calories.
Tuition portion of the scholarship is refundable. My daughter had an internship last semester (still working there today). She had to enroll in some type of internship class to remain a full time student. But because she wasn’t taking any other classes, UK refunded her remaining unused tuition. North of $13k. She will need to pay taxes on that next April but still nets a decent amount of money towards grad school. And given that internship was local, she could live in the dorm and bank the money the internship paid her.
She also had the option of deferring her scholarship. Would have needed to pay for room and board.
End result is she needs to be able to graduate in 7 semesters (of classes) to have it work. She and her adviser looked very carefully at remaining classes she needs and that will not be an issue. Right now she is trying to figure out if she can graduate in 6 semesters and do a study abroad the last semester.
Anyone going with their students to the Singeltary/Patterson scholarship dinner on August 18th? We got the invite kind of late but are going to manage to be there.
@proudmom9 My son and I will be attending after we drive in that afternoon.
On Kentucky’s website it says the Patterson housing stipend is only for the first year? Is the housing portion not renewable?
@kimberanne98 The housing portion of the Patterson used to be renewable. Last year it was renewable once (for a total of two years). Apparently that is not the case anymore. Most schools seem to be decreasing their merit scholarships over time, and I guess Kentucky is following the trend now that it has established recognition.
UK shifted their financial aid strategy a few years ago. At the time, 90% of aid was based on merit. By 2021, the target is for 35% to be merit, and 65% need-based.
Has anyone else excepted offer? My son is thinking about it he loved the school we are just not sure what all it really covers and what we will need to pay. I cant see any post of anyone who attended the university and received this scholarship. would love to see cost.
For the costs listed in this link:
https://www.uky.edu/financialaid/tuition-and-fees
Tuition and fees are covered.
$10,000 toward room and board is covered (1st year only).
Large expenses that it doesn’t cover:
- Books
- Class fees, which can be significant for engineering classes (https://www.uky.edu/registrar/sites/www.uky.edu.registrar/files/2019-20%20Program%20Course%20and%20other%20Student%20Fees.pdf)
- Honors college fee ($500 / year)
- Nothing toward room and board for years 2 through 4.
Has he been offered the Patterson for the class of 2024?
yes he has. I was looking to see if anyone knew about how much it would be after scholarship each year. if there was anyone on this page who actually accepted and goes to the university. would be helpful to talk to.
If you are looking at all in costs, that will vary by student/major. Some classes charge fees that are not covered by the tuition scholarship. More so with engineering but true with some other majors as well. For Patterson scholarships that covered full room/board (was how the scholarship worked 2 or 3 years ago for incoming freshmen), there was some play because they covered the cost of a middle of the road dorm (if you went with a cheaper dorm or lived off campus in a cheaper apartment, you could use the difference to cover amounts not covered by the tuition scholarship). But now its just $10k for one year (which won’t cover full costs of living on campus) for on campus living. And then there are books which will vary by major/classes taken.