Will Kentucky's colleges and universities be bureaucratized?
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, May, 1997

In recent years, governors have chosen one issue to emphasize above all others. Wallace Wilkinson wanted to be known as the education governor and Brereton Jones emphasized health care reform. Gov. Paul Patton has indicated that he wants to be known for reforming higher education.

Patton has barnstormed the state trying to marshal support for his plan and has met with some success. But it is still unclear that he has the votes he will need to pass the plan in the special session of the Kentucky General Assembly that will begin on May 6.

Most of the attention in the debate has been focused on the fight between Patton and the University of Kentucky over control of the community colleges. But there are more fundamental issues at stake.

In one of the first shots fired at Patton’s plan, State Rep. Stan Cave, a Lexington Republican, charged in a Herald-Leader editorial that the Governor’s plan would merely consolidate power in the Governor’s office.

“The higher education reform proposal in its current form makes institutions of higher learning mere extensions of the Frankfort political apparatus,” said Cave.

Cave compared the Governor’s higher education plan with KERA and the 1994 health care reforms and predicted the same kinds of problems that have plagued those initiatives. The General Assembly is expected to force Patton into making major modifications of his plan before it has a chance of passage.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst