Role Of Kentucky Council On Postsecondary

Higher education governance systems across the United States are extremely complex and vary from state to state, consequently the landscape of postsecondary organizations is just as varied, there are no two states with the same governance structure. There are many boards that have oversight and governance of higher education institutions, which comprise of single, statewide coordinating board/agency, single, statewide governing board, one or more systemwide coordinating or governing board, and administrative/service agency. Each state has a governance that relates to the decision-making processes and structures, many of which draw on long-standing historical regulatory models (Dobbins & Jungblut, 2018). Higher education governance addresses

The council also licenses non-profit and for-profit higher education institutions to operate in Kentucky (Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, 2022). The Governor appoints the Council members, which include 13 citizens, one faculty member and one student member; the Commissioner of Education is an ex-officio member. The role of and responsibilities of the Council are to ensure a well-coordinated and efficient public postsecondary education system which include, but are not limited to: set educational attainment goal for the state, develops and implements a statewide strategic agenda and diversity policy aligned with state goals, creates a biennial budget request and performance funding model for adequate funding, monitors and approves tuition rates, admission criteria and academic programs, collects, analyzes and reports comprehensive performance data, ensures the coordination and connectivity of technology, provides orientation and training for college and university board members or regents, works with campuses on transferability of credits among public two-year and four-year institutions (Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, 2022). The Council’s role in government is to facilitate a positive return on investment of public funds supporting higher education by monitoring academic quality,

Due to the enormous population of California, it does have lower in-state tuition rates, however, the wages in California are greatly larger than those of the demographics in Kentucky. There are fewer postsecondary institutions in Kentucky perhaps leads to why the cost may be more than in California. The higher education Master Plan in California if by far more complex than Kentucky and due to roles of three bodies, California Community Colleges (CCC), California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC). Each one of those has boards that are afforded a significant amount of control as opposed to Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education. The concern in higher education is funding particularly post-pandemic. Both states must ensure that funding and finances are protected to ensure all those who want a quality education are afforded that opportunity. In both states, there are gaps in access to education. They must continue to actively pursue avenues to bridge the gap to access if that means more distance learning opportunities. The pandemic accelerated online learning, however, post pandemic schools continue to struggle with returning students to in person and