Kentucky Cannot Build Good Higher Education Policy Through Echo Chambers | Opinion

On June 3, I testified before Kentucky’s Interim Joint Budget Review Subcommittee on Education as a Ph.D. student studying higher education policy. I arrived early, took a vacation day from work, and hoped to participate in what was presented as a public discussion about college affordability.

What I witnessed instead raised deeper concerns about democratic participation and how higher education policy is increasingly shaped in Kentucky.

The hearing centered heavily on presentations from the Goldwater Institute, a national think tank that has promoted model legislation targeting higher education institutions across the country through its “Higher Ed Restoration Act.” While lawmakers framed the conversation as one about affordability, much of the discussion focused on restructuring faculty work, limiting scholarship, increasing political oversight of universities, and redefining the purpose of public higher education.

In Kentucky legislative committees, chairs possess authority over agendas, witness selection, speaking opportunities, and the flow of discussion. On June 3, that authority was visible. There was no public sign-up process for testimony when I arrived. I created my own sign-up sheet after discovering none existed and handed it to Chair Sen. Steve Rawlings, who then asked, “What do you contribute to the conversation?” I explained that I completed doctoral coursework in Educational Leadership and Organizational Development at UofL, had 20 years of experience in higher education, and wished to offer a research-informed perspective on affordability in higher education.

Whether members of the public were permitted to speak appeared to depend on informal conversations, discretionary decisions, and persistence rather than a transparent process.

Even after being allowed to testify, I was informed that I would have only approximately three minutes to speak. Yet invited think tank representatives were afforded more time to shape the discussion. At one point, committee leadership instructed university representatives not to emphasize inflation when discussing rising tuition costs, despite inflation and state disinvestment being central components of affordability debates nationwide.

When policymakers control who speaks, how long they speak, which frameworks are emphasized, and which facts receive less attention, public hearings risk becoming performative exercises rather than democratic deliberation.

When ideological organizations are granted latitude to shape policy narratives while the voices of Kentucky citizens and institutional experts face constraints, policymaking can quickly become an echo chamber.

And echo chambers do not produce good public policy.

Strong policy requires multiple forms of expertise. It requires students, institutional leaders, staff, faculty, employers and community members at the table. It requires evidence grounded in scholarship, institutional data and lived experience. It requires openness to competing viewpoints rather than predetermined ideological conclusions.

Public universities are complex institutions with different missions but a shared purpose: strengthening communities and expanding opportunity. Affordability challenges cannot be reduced to simplistic narratives blaming social justice research, non-STEM faculty research, academic disciplines, or institutional missions. Kentucky’s affordability crisis is connected to decades of declining state investment in higher education, shifting tuition burdens onto students and families, rising operational costs, workforce pressures, and broader economic conditions.

Unfortunately, Kentucky law provides limited protections for public participation in legislative hearings. Unlike some states, Kentucky does not broadly mandate public comment opportunities at committee hearings, nor does it establish enforceable standards guaranteeing fairness or equal participation for citizens wishing to testify. In practice, this means legislative leadership exercises wide discretion over whose expertise is recognized and whose voices remain peripheral.

Democracy depends not simply on hearings but on opportunities for citizens to participate in the “sausage making” of policy, not merely watch from the sidelines. When access becomes dependent on gatekeeping, networks, or ideological alignment, democratic legitimacy weakens, placing Kentucky students at risk.

The issue extends beyond a single hearing or organization. Across the country, higher education policymaking increasingly involves efforts to regulate knowledge itself: determining which scholarship is legitimate, which research deserves support, and which perspectives are considered valuable. Once governments begin narrowing acceptable forms of expertise or privileging certain ideological frameworks over others, policymaking becomes less about solving problems and more about controlling discourse.

Kentucky deserves better than policymaking through echo chambers.

If lawmakers want to improve higher education affordability, they should invite broader participation, protect the public voice, and ensure transparency in how legislative discussions are structured.

Good policy emerges through open deliberation, not controlled narratives.

James Orlick is a Ph.D. student in Educational Leadership and Organizational Development at the University of Louisville. The views expressed are his own.