Lexington, KY - We at Business Lexington don't often editorialize and we do not endorse political candidates, thinking it more important to maintain journalistic independence than to position ourselves as political power brokers. Sometimes, however, there are issues of such importance and urgency that neutrality serves no one's interests. There are times when it's necessary to take a stand.
We think our state's ongoing and worsening crisis of affordable access to its public institutions of higher education is just such a time.
Here's why.
As we begin to emerge from economic upheaval to a reorganizing economy, career paths very recently taken for granted are disappearing or gone. Tens of thousands of American jobs in agriculture, production and administrative support fields are being outsourced, replaced by technologies or altogether eliminated, according to new projections by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Many occupations among the hardest hit by the recent recession had already been in decline for years due to advanced technologies and the shifting sands of the global economy. Computer operators saw a 31 percent decline between 2004 and '09, according to the BLS, which anticipates continued deterioration in the field. The bureau projects an additional 30 percent decline in Postal Service mail sorters by 2018. The occupation already has lost nearly 57,000 jobs since 2004. Alternative medicine specialists such as acupuncturists, homeopathic doctors and hypnotherapists have declined 44 percent since '04. Approximately 300,000 administrative jobs have vanished, with continued contraction projected throughout the decade. Internet and television advertising have replaced telemarketers and door-to-door salespeople. The rise in digital photography and automated printing is expected to result in a 24 percent decline in photo-processing jobs by 2018. The already disappearing field of communications monitoring via radiotelephone equipment saw a five-year decline of 42 percent. Carpenters? Down 17 percent. Seamstresses? Outsourced. Textile workers: same fate.
Well-paid manufacturing jobs that require modest training and only a high school education are a thing of the past.
The meaning of "job security" has been redefined.
Against this backdrop, it seems like common sense: that giving increasingly fewer Kentuckians affordable access to quality education will not bring a better future for Kentucky. It will not benefit the state in the short term, as businesses consider the availability of an educated, skilled workforce before deciding where to launch or relocate. And it won't help us in the long term, either, as today's students grow into tomorrow's potential innovators and job creators.
This seems pretty fundamental to us. It's a view shared by the business community, expressed in a statement by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce that "Kentucky's economic well-being is inextricably linked to the education and skills of its citizens."
In academic year 1999-00, average tuition and mandatory fees at Kentucky's public four-year universities was $2,629. Eleven years later, in academic year 2010-11, average tuition and fees at the state's public universities was $7,180, according to the Council on Postsecondary Education. This more than doubling of the cost of obtaining a public university education in Kentucky has occurred even as income among middle-class wage earners has remained stagnant - at best.
How does this make sense, especially for a state that has mountains to climb in the quest for competitive stature in what long ago became a knowledge economy?
Fact: Analysis of 2010 unemployment by the Bureau of Labor Statistics documents a jobless rate of 14.9 percent among those with less than a high school diploma; 10.3 percent among high school graduates; and 9.2 percent among those with some college experience but no diploma. The rate steadily declines as educational level rises from there: 5.4 percent for those with bachelor's degrees, 4.0 percent for those with master's degrees, 2.4 percent for holders of professional degrees and 1.9 percent for PhDs.
Fact: Kentucky, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ranks sixth in the nation for poverty among its citizens; an estimated 750,000 of us are just barely getting by, day-by-day.
There's no question that Kentucky has made progress in education. Our education system is now ranked 33rd in the nation - an improvement from 48th in 1990, the year the Kentucky Education Reform Act was enacted, followed by postsecondary education reforms in 1997.
Any momentum arising from these initiatives, however, has been stalled and quite possibly sent into reverse as our legislators and elected leaders, favoring political expediency, have consistently defunded education, shifting more and more of the costs onto the shoulders of families and sending our graduates out into the world under the crushing burden of mortgage-sized student loans. Still, we look to these same educated young adults to remain in Kentucky to launch the innovative and vital small businesses that are the lifeblood and future of our state's economy.
Some might call this contradictory. Some might even call it a little crazy.
The real question for the state of Kentucky, especially in light of current economic conditions, is not whether we can afford to fund education, but how can we possibly afford not to fund it?
Strengthening our educational muscle alone won't bring change - fundamental, broad-based tax reform also is an essential that Frankfort has for too many years neglected. But the quality of our future absolutely turns on how Kentuckians regard the relevance of intellectual pursuit.
Intellect is an exquisitely precious gift.
Disciplining intellect through rigorous higher education sharpens an ability to think critically; to challenge, question and seek answers; and to investigate and solve problems. To innovate and to ponder abstract ideas distinguishes us as a species on this planet. How fundamentally irresponsible it is to squander such a gift.
We believe every young Kentuckian who possesses the drive to absorb the many benefits of a college or university education should be afforded the opportunity.
The ability to pay for college should not be the deciding obstacle.
The late Gatewood Galbraith included in his most recent gubernatorial platform the proposal that "each (Kentucky) high school graduate should receive a $5,000 voucher for books, tuition and fees to any institution of higher learning within Kentucky committed to employment training, whether it is college, vocational school or trade school."
We think that's a good place to start a serious discussion about the level of our investment in human capital. Given that funds are limited and finite, perhaps such a program should be need-based.
"This is not a bank account and cannot be spent on pizza, rent or fun," Galbraith continued. "It is solely for the direct educational expenses meant to further train all of our graduates for future employment, allowing them 10 years to redeem it."
Kentuckians covet the ideal that if we properly educate our young, they'll stick around and make things even better. We become disappointed - even despondent - when upon graduating from the schools we have funded, they instead leave us for greener pastures. We should investigate the outcomes other states have documented after implementing variations on a student loan instrument stipulating that graduating professionals who return to and remain in their home communities for a predetermined number of years be relieved of repayment. In the event that they do not stay, the grant converts to a low-interest loan.
Yes, times are hard, but the rising cost of higher education must be addressed, one way or another. While our legislators should commit to protecting our state's crucial commitment to and investment in higher education, our higher education institutions need to implement new approaches and technologies in education that will open the doors to more Kentuckians than ever before, as opposed to simply answering funding cuts with higher tuition rates for the increasingly few who can afford them.
Roughly 65 years ago, the late Ray Bradbury imagined in his book Fahrenheit 451 the consequences when society is deprived of its intellectual treasure - books - resulting in the erosion and death of curiosity and inquiry. This prescient vision was recently brought to the stage of Lexington's Balagula Theater. Its message resonated with discomforting familiarity.
In the dumbed-down and heavily sedated culture envisioned by Bradbury, citizens are reduced to popping mind-numbing pills, and any intellectual pursuit is effectively distracted by a relentless appeal, via giant home television screens, to the latent narcissism in us all. Ring a bell?
Certainly our society has not yet fully realized this extreme, but in many ways, we do seem to be flirting with it.
According to jobs researcher Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., the period between 2005 and '09 saw a 61 percent decline in jobs in the various fields of live stage performance as home entertainment technologies become pervasive throughout society.
We're on a slippery slope. Tell your legislator that your vote comes with high expectations of the courage and intelligence to make decisions on the basis of what is good for us as a people - versus what plays best at the polls.