After two financial crises that almost forced the station off the air, KUER evolved substantially in the 1970s and 1980s with the creation of NPR, a shift to a hybrid format of daytime classical and nighttime jazz music, each featuring long-tenured personalities.

In response to falling ratings, classical music was removed from the schedule in 2001—triggering listener outcry but not a significant decline in donations.

At the same time, the station created RadioWest, a local and regional news discussion program focusing on Utah and the Western United States.

The regents of the University of Utah (U of U) approved in November 1959 an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish an FM radio station on the campus.

It made its first broadcast the next day, June 5, consisting of a dedication program and the university's commencement ceremonies, simulcast with KUED.

[9] The station made two large leaps in its early years: expanding to an 11-hour weekday program schedule and adding weekend broadcasts in April 1961[10] and relocating its transmitter from Kingsbury Hall to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains in 1962, improving reception in Salt Lake City and extending coverage along the Wasatch Front to Ogden and Provo.

The lack of programming for this group led to a push to start a new carrier current outlet, "KUTE", aimed at campus interests.

Beginning in the 1967–68 school year, the station was funded by the Intermountain Regional Medical Program, which used KUER to broadcast postgraduate courses in medicine to physicians, but this was supplanted by direct telephone lines to hospitals.

[18] The station survived with funding from the Associated Students of the University of Utah and, beginning in the 1972–73 school year, became entirely student-operated, with some 70 volunteers and—for the first time—opportunity to earn course credits for working at KUER.

Gene Pack started with KUER when it began in June 1960 and remained for 42 years, spending almost all of that time hosting classical music programming.

On March 16, 2001, with little notice, Greene discontinued KUER's daytime classical programming and replaced it with additional NPR talk shows.

[59] Airing two days a week (Wednesday and Thursday[59]) is RadioWest, a newsmagazine focusing on issues of Utah and the West hosted by Doug Fabrizio.

RadioWest debuted on February 1, 2000, initially as a twice-weekly program with reports from KUER and other public radio stations in the western United States, emphasizing longform and narrative features.

[60][61] In May 2001, RadioWest became KUER's first daily local news program, shifting to an hour in a midday timeslot and adding call-in segments.

The show was moved to an earlier time after Morning Edition, which exacerbated Fabrizio's workload and made it harder to attract guests.

KUEU in Logan went on the air in 2007 as KZCL, repeating Salt Lake City community radio station KRCL to northern Utah.

[67] A translator in Pocatello, Idaho, was donated by the University of Utah to Boise State Public Radio in 2022, with the U of U citing difficulty in maintaining a reliable signal from Salt Lake City.