KY legislature, governor OK bill eliminating race from higher ed funding model

By the time this year’s fall semester begins, Kentucky’s public colleges and universities won’t be evaluated by the racial makeup of their student body.

Senate Bill 191, which explicitly bars the Council on Postsecondary Education from considering race in its performance-based funding model, passed the legislature Monday and was signed into law by Gov. Andy Beshear Wednesday afternoon.

Because it was passed after the legislature’s 10-day veto break, Beshear was in the driver’s seat as to whether the bill would become law or not.

The bill states outright that the CPE “shall not include any race-based metrics or targets in the formulas.”

It also strikes out references to “minority” students in the formula’s consideration, allowing colleges to be evaluated on the number of bachelor’s degrees and credits awarded to “underrepresented students” instead of “underrepresented minority students.” Those are two of the 11 metrics the performance funding model currently uses.

Underrepresented minorities are defined as students who identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or two or more races.

According to a statement from CPE President Aaron Thompson, work will be done to home in on an acceptable definition for “underrepresented students.”

“The state’s performance funding work group, which is comprised of higher education leaders and representatives from the governor’s office and the General Assembly, will work together during the interim to define underrepresented students in the model that will help continue to advance the state’s goals for a more highly trained and educated workforce,” Thompson said in a statement to the Herald-Leader.

The original bill made other tweaks to the council’s performance-based funding model, particularly including “nontraditional age students” in the goal of closing achievement gaps as well as shifting funding evaluation slightly toward student success and away from credit hours. It was modified on the House floor, via an amendment from Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, in the legislature’s final day to include the race component.

Beshear told reporters Thursday he did not like striking race from consideration, but said he thought the rest of the bill meant more funding for Kentucky State University, the state’s only public historically Black university, and other regional universities.

“I want to say very clearly that I support diversity initiatives in Kentucky. I support direct assistance to minority students. I believe that we are better when we are lifting every single one of us, and I believe underrepresented students, including our minority students have faced more challenges when it comes to post-secondary enrollment... (The bill) was one where, to get the money, where it needed to go, I had to sign something into law that I did not fully and entirely agree with,” Beshear said.

This portion of the funding model came under public scrutiny this year when Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman issued an opinion, at the request of Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy.

Drawing on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which struck down affirmative action last year, Coleman said using “underrepresented minorities” as a metric for funding state colleges is unconstitutional.

University of Kentucky President Eli Capiluoto has previously said that making such a change could hurt the state’s flagship university.

“Historically, we have performed exceptionally on those metrics,” Capilouto said.

School spokesperson Jay Blanton said that the underrepresented minority metric previously represented about 3% of the formula funding.

“That has been redistributed to an existing metric (low-income students) and a new metric (first-generation college students). That’s for 2024-2025,” Blanton wrote. “For future years, the CPE has convened a workgroup, including the presidents, to determine how to define to underrepresented populations going forward. We are still assessing what impacts this will have on funding for this year.”

Though the bill deals with the issue of diversity in higher education, its aims are separate from the GOP-led push to limit diversity, equity and inclusion (also known as “DEI”) practices in Kentucky higher education institutions. The Senate and the House never agreed on that overarching effort, despite both wanting to limit DEI in some way, and did not pass a bill this session.

Michael Frazier, the Executive Director of the Kentucky Student Rights Coalition who was involved in crafting Senate Bill 191, celebrated the bill signing. He stressed that it is “not a DEI bill” and mentioned working with the legislature’s education committee chairs, the state’s universities and Thompson on the bill.

Frazier also indicated that the consideration of race in performance funding was encouraging Kentucky public universities to prioritize out-of-state students.

“I appreciate (CPE’s) commitment to our comprehensive universities to remove the weights subsidizing out of state students, and wonderful dedication helping Kentucky’s public higher education students,” Frazier wrote in a statement. “We are lucky to have Dr. Thompson. Again, Governor Beshear has chose to protect student rights, equality, and the Constitution. Gov. Beshear has ensured Kentucky’s higher education tax-dollars are used to help Kentucky’s students.”

The bill was first passed unanimously in the state Senate to give it final passage, though four of the Senate’s seven Democrats later recorded “no” votes on it.