The Senate Education Committee has approved a bill that would expand the use of Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarships to high school students.
The plan is sponsored by Republican Senator Stan Humphries of Trigg County.
“The intent of this bill is to allow high school seniors beginning in the 2014-15 school year, and juniors the following year in 15-16, to use their earned KEES awards to pay for up to six college credit hours through dual credit courses.” –Stan Humphries
Only one Senator opposed the bill during Thursday’s (Jan. 30) vote. Rowan County Democrat Walter Blevins says extending the program to high school students without providing additional funding for KEES could reduce the size of scholarships for everyone.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio
“I’d like to have the figures in front of me to make sure we’re not taking away KEES money from people basically if you do this. There’s the chance that we’re gonna lose over a thousand dollars in KEES and I don’t wanna do that…it’s hard for me to vote for that.” –Walter Blevins
The Kentucky Education Association also opposes the bill. While supporting its concept, the organization says there should be a separate funding source for high school scholarships.