‘Mean-spirited’ bill would kill Kentucky’s Donovan Scholars for seniors | Opinion

For 50 years legislation of a then-enlightened General Assembly has permitted Kentucky citizens 65 and over to attend college classes at Kentucky’s public institutions with tuition waivers under the Donovan Program.

Now legislation sponsored by Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, is sponsoring House Bill 497 to create barriers that will effectively end it. His reasons are that many seniors don’t need tuition assistance and that they are too old to re-enter the work force, the supposition being that education is solely to prepare the young for jobs.

As a career teacher at two Kentucky universities, I want to differ emphatically. The bill is mean-spirited. No figures are given to indicate the cost of the program. Participants sit in classes that are already funded, only where there are spots. Learning, as anyone familiar with trends in higher ed knows, is and should be, life-long. Recent studies in neuroscience indicate that keeping the mind active actually prolongs life. It certainly improves quality of life.

Contrary to Tipton’s remarks in a recent interview, education is not solely a matter of job-getting. It is meant to enrich one’s life with wisdom and insight into the nature of life itself, qualities that ensure an informed electorate as the basis of the successful democracy envisioned by our founders. It is receptive to the world of ideas. Seniors in the classroom benefit the learning process.

Tipton argues that the program is unfair since it gives seniors a free ride when many can afford it. This program is an affirmation of our citizens’ right to learn, especially since the program is ultimately funded by those same taxpayers. I think I speak for a majority of my former colleagues when I say that classes benefit from diversity and a variety of perspectives, including those that experience and age bring to educating the young.

Education is more than job training and information technology. It includes critical thinking, history, literature, and the arts as well as a generosity of spirit that undergirds all of higher generation. This bill is small-minded. What made me proud to live in a commonwealth that has provided opportunities to every Kentucky senior for 50 years with the introduction of this bill makes me ashamed. Maybe James Tipton needs to go back to school. I believe as a matter of faith and personal experience that old dogs can learn new tricks.

Richard Taylor is former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, a novelist, and a retired university professor.