KENTUCKY — The Supreme Court of the United States’ rulings related to affirmative action have already begun to affect areas of higher education beyond admissions policies.

On June 29, the same day the decisions came down, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey ordered all higher education institutions in the state to end all financial aid or scholarship programs that take race into account, with which the University of Missouri system promptly complied.

Dr. Aaron Thompson, president of Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education joins this In Focus Kentucky segment to discuss the state of higher education in Kentucky, national factors that influence higher education including the 6-3 decision from the Supreme Court that said race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional. The ruling means schools will have to look for new ways to achieve a diverse student body.

“Well, it will have an effect. We just don’t know how big of an effect here in Kentucky. We expected that ruling to happen. And several years ago, we started actually doing our business in such a manner that we would hopefully not be affected as much by such a ruling. My guess is we will be affected some, we just don’t know exactly how much yet. We haven’t been using race based purely admissions in a long time. But the idea is that there’s still a whole lot of things that we’re doing to help our most disenfranchised populations. We hope that it won’t have a lot of, but obviously we know that it will, even if it’s the perception that you know that an institution won’t take me because of the color of my skin. Now in Kentucky, we hope we’re not doing that. But there will be a perception of such. I can imagine also that several of our historically black colleges and universities will probably see an uptake in enrollment, just simply because it would be perceived that our predominantly white institutions may not be in a position where they can accept. That’s not the case obviously in Kentucky. We hope it doesn’t slow down at all. But we think it will have some effect,” said Thompson.

You can watch the full In Focus Kentucky segment in the player above.