I know that Kentucky ranks lower than UConn in most undergraduate academic metrics, and I didn't claim otherwise. But kids in Kentucky and other states are still more likely to choose their state flagships and other nearby institutions over higher ranked out-of-state schools, including UConn. In addition, some students are attracted to a school because it excels in a particular discipline -- geology, for example, or environmental science, or physics, or aeronautical engineering, or architecture, or creative writing. In which areas of study is UConn so superior that it would attract students away from their home states?
If you think that UConn is better equipped to weather the coming demographic storm than those other schools because it might rank higher on USN&WR (and it doesn't when compared to many), then you'll have to come up with a more persuasive argument than your feeble ad hominem attacks on my understanding of the situation. I note with considerable interest that UConn's endowment and its research activity don't compare favorably with a lot of seemingly inferior institutions, even with those of UK.