Eastern Kentucky University is entering into a partnership with two local government organizations. It’s aimed at enhancing education for their employees while bringing more students to EKU. The three-year memorandum of understanding connects EKU with the Kentucky League of Cities and Kentucky Association of Counties. KLC Executive Director J.D. Chaney said it’s getting increasingly complex to provide government services. “The jobs that used to be filled, that you would think of as just hard blue-collar labor are requiring more and more technical capabilities as they go along. And the level of education that our city employees are having to have is increasing, because of that complexity,” said Chaney.
Eastern will provide a 30% discount in tuition to all government employees for both undergraduate and graduate programs. Students are guaranteed a fixed tuition rate for two years. Participants are also eligible for Eastern’s free textbook program.
EKU President David McFaddin said the Richmond school serves more Kentuckians, per capita, than any other institution in the state. McFaddin noted it’s part of the school’s public mission to offer this new program. The EKU President admitted it’s hard to pin down how many city and county employees will opt for in-person or online instruction. “You know a five to ten percent take rate is normally about what we see so when we look at these two agencies together, all the employees they serve. Let’s assume it’s 25,000, then we can kind of see there where we are going to land as far as total employee participation,” explained McFaddin.
McFaddin said understandably some of these local government employees could choose to go to an institution closer to them. The EKU president noted many counties and cities are providing tuition support for some of their employees. McFaddin added city and county employees are a big part of what makes every community across the Commonwealth work.
