Kentucky University professors and campus workers say state lawmakers are trying to weaken tenure protections, a competitive process and status that keeps professors on the job permanently.

As our June Leffler reports, the Senate Education Committee erupted into a debate over the role money should have in higher education.

Here's her report.

House Bill 490 allows universities more discretion to fire employees for the sake of cutting costs.

Language in this bill is modeled after a faculty Senate approved handbook language at the University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University.

In the bill, bona fide financial reasons are described as financial exigency.

Low enrollment in a particular program or major, or misalignment of revenue and cost in a particular college, department, program or major.

Universities can already do this, but this measure would make those rules uniform across Kentucky's colleges.

United Campus Workers of Kentucky opposes House Bill 490, saying it degrades the role and protections of tenured professors.

I want to remind everyone in this room that our public colleges and universities are not businesses.

They are nonprofit educational institutions that have for over a century ensure the intellectual, moral, professional and personal development of the citizens of the state.

If the bill is passed, I envision a future in which degree programs that have been taught for decades will be eliminated in favor of certifications and credentials for money making occupations that, in our current economy, are likely to be obsolete in five years.

I foresee students who are already confused by a digital environment filled with lies and misinformation, confronted by the marketing of trendy new majors, rather than the proper advising that they need.

One Lexington Democrat agrees with the professor, saying this could compromise academic freedom.

The reason we send our children to college is so they can get a full scope.

We call it an amphitheater of ideas of all different types of subjects, viewpoints, philosophies, and they make the best decisions to what is in their best, what they may support.

If we do this, our college universities will become more political, not less.

Republicans support the bill.

I think our institutions do need to be run at a minimum, fiscally as a business, so that we make sure that the money our taxpayers are pouring into, which is very generously poured into our universities, is used and utilized in the correct way.

So if it's not a business, then maybe respectfully, you could take some pay cuts or volunteer your time.

It is a business and it's the business of America to be in the business.

I promote this, but this is going to make us more effective and graduate better students if they know they're going out into a world of business.

The Senate Education Committee approved House Bill 490 in an 8 to 2 vote.

Both Democrats voted no.

The bill now heads to the full Senate, though it would need concurrence in the House.

For Kentucky edition, I'm John Leffler.