"Before retiring as president of the Council on Post Secondary Before retiring as president of the Council on Post Secondary Education at the end of August, Dr. Tom Layzell sat down with Business Lexington reporter Erik Carlson in studio to discuss his career, his tenure with CPE and the future of colleges and universities around the state.
This article shares some short, excerpted responses to questions posed during that conversation. Visit www.bizlex.com to hear a podcast of the full interview, including Layzell's discussion of his accomplishments while with CPE, areas of focus for his successors, the need to double the number of Kentuckians with bachelor degrees, the aim of economic development in a high-tech state, and how the state can attract and create more knowledge-based jobs.
On bonding authority for public universities
I have supported since I got here the granting of revenue bond authority to these institutions, and so far that hasn't happened. That hasn't been the tradition here in Kentucky. But at a recent hearing on the capital planning advisory board that oversees or does capital planning for all the state government, there was expressed some willingness to at least maybe reconsider that issue and study it, which I think they ought to do
I would certainly support institutions having their own revenue bond authority, because the market will discipline those projects. It will speed up the process.
On the state's allocation of university funds
I don't think there is a president in the country, and there certainly is not a state in the country, where this argument is not an ongoing argument. but that's where a council comes in. People gripe about the way our funding model is and that's fair game, but we try to allocate funds on the basis of both what we think the state's priorities are and the needs are, and to try to maintain some balance among the universities. Every university and every community college is important to achievement of the goals. We can't get to where we need to go by saying, "Well, we're just going to invest in one or two or three of those nine public institutions and 20-something odd independent institutions." Every one of them has a contribution to make, and every one of them has their champions that would immediately jump up and down if they thought their institution was getting the short end of the stick.
On interim CPE president and former state budget director Brad Cowgill's stance against extending bonding authority
It's the old saying — where he stands depends on where he sits, and you get different perspectives. Brad as state budget director was looking at it from the perspective of the history and the tradition in this state and the way of doing business, and he rightly supported that. I'm not going to try to speak for him, but knowing Brad, he's a person of great intellect and curiosity and open-mindedness, and I think he would be willing to take another look at it. Whether he would conclude at the end of the day as I did that revenue bonding authority is essential remains to be seen. But we can get things done with the use of revenue bonds now. It just takes longer than it should, and it's worth a look in my view to see whether or not we should change the process.
On the advantages of Kentucky doubling the number of baccalaureates in the state to 800,000
The kind of standard statistic that people throw out is, as you increase your educational attainment, you will earn a lot more money over your working life — and that's true. You will. And that's only going to get more true because of the demands of the economy for more and more higher levels of educational attainment. But you'll have improved quality of life, you know better public health. As a citizen, your life is going to be better the more education you have. You'll have a greater appreciation of the things around you. You'll probably be more willing to engage in public activities. As I told my kids, it opens up so many more options to you — not just the financial options. In financial terms, our calculations are that should we reach this number, should we hit the 2020 target, there'd be about $140 billion increase over time in personal income and about a $9 billion increase in state revenues; that's pretty significant. And I think those numbers are only going to grow. We're probably understating the double the numbers target now, because it was based on 2000 census data. The other states are not waiting for Kentucky to catch up, although it is interesting that other states continue to look at Kentucky for what it did and even have incorporated or adopted this double the numbers in their own state, because there is not a state in the country that doesn't have educational attainment problems.