Northern Kentucky University's main campus in Highland Heights, Kentucky, is situated on 400 acres (1.6 km2) of rolling countryside along U.S. Route 27, just off of Interstate 275 and Interstate 471, seven miles (11 km) southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The campus was built beginning in the early 1970s, and the first building, Nunn Hall, opened in 1972.

The university campus is also the first educational institute in the world to have a laser-projection planetarium; it is part of the Dorothy Westerman Hermann Natural Science Center.

[citation needed] The Japanese Language School of Greater Cincinnati is a weekend supplementary Japanese school held at the Mathematics, Education and Psychology Center (MP), formerly known as the Business Education Psychology (BEP) Building.

Northern Kentucky University students are also a part of individual chapters in numerous honor societies.

Northern Kentucky University only considers for admission applicants with a 2.0 or above unweighted high school GPA, those with a 2.75 and greater unweighted high school GPA are admitted regardless of ACT or SAT scores, and the university has a 90% acceptance rate.

[44] NorseMediaTV is the PEG access Public-access television cable TV station run by Northern Kentucky University.

Many NorseMedia programs have won awards at the local (Blue Chips),[46] regional (Philos) and national (Telly) levels, usually in the professional categories.

[48] Northern Kentucky University joined the Horizon League on July 1, 2015, after leaving the Atlantic Sun Conference.

[6] The 2016–17 school year was the first in which NKU is eligible for NCAA Division I championships, following the completion of its four-year reclassification period to D-I.

[citation needed] Students have also organized club teams in bowling, ice hockey,[50] men's soccer club,[51] taekwondo[52] fencing,[53] boxing, lacrosse,[54] rugby, kickball, skeet & trap, and men's wrestling.

Many have gone on to achieve success in a variety of fields, including athletics, journalism, business, and government.