Northern Kentucky University is a public, co-educational university in northern Kentucky located in Highland Heights, seven miles (11 km) southeast of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The university is primarily an undergraduate, liberal arts institution, but it also features graduate programs. Total enrollment at the university currently exceeds 15,000 students, with over 13,000 undergraduate students and over 2,000 graduate students served by nearly 2600 faculty and staff. Northern Kentucky University is the third largest university, behind the University of Cincinnati and Miami University, but before Xavier University, of Greater Cincinnati's four large, four-year universities and the youngest of Kentucky's eight state universities, although it is not the last to join the state system, as the University of Louisville did not become a state university until 1970.