The U.S. Senate recently confirmed Robert “Bob” King as assistant secretary for postsecondary education after his nomination in February by President Trump. The impact King’s appointment will have on diversity in higher education remains an open question.
King is a new player on the national stage. However, his tenure as president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education might offer some clues, some say.
When King came to Kentucky in 2009, Dr. Mary Evans Sias, the former president of Kentucky State University, felt some trepidation as a leader of the state’s only historically Black college. She heard tuition rose when King was chancellor of the State University of New York system (SUNY).
It was true. During his five-year tenure as chancellor, tuition on SUNY campuses increased by 28 percent, according to the New York Times. King, an attorney by training, previously served in the New York governor’s office as budget director and director of the Office of Regulatory Reform, roles that critics argued left him mindful of the governor’s budget at students’ expense.
Sias now serves as the director of the Millennium Leadership Initiative and assistant to the president at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Ultimately, she reflects positively on her six years of work with King. They didn’t always agree, she says, but she found him to be a good listener, a data wonk and “an advocate for effective and sound policy.”
“One of the first conversations we had was about the fact that historically Black colleges and minority serving institutions were not a part of his history and the institutions he had governed,” she says. “He worked well with us, I thought.”
She said he encouraged Kentucky State University to work with community colleges to create smoother transitions for transfer students. He created standards for education programs to ensure quality training for teachers and principals. And, despite her concerns, undergraduate tuition actually went down.
