A free-market victory at UK!

Private developers - yes private - will be building student housing on University of Kentucky property. Don't believe me? Well, check it out for yourself.

This is certainly good news and a step in the right direction. Building housing for students is exactly the type of activity that should fall in the hands of private businesses - organizations that have no other choice than to meet their bottom lines and understand the importance of being timely, efficient and productive.

In the Lexington Herald-Leader article linked to above, UK's director of purchasing, Bill Harris, states that the current economic downturn does not allow for the university to take this construction project on by itself so it needs to be done by the private sector.

I would argue that it is always the right time for the private sector to take on these developments. If the private sector is more capable of handling development in times of financial distress, then it certainly is more than capable of doing so during economic booms!

We applaud these efforts by the University of Kentucky to incorporate the private sector into developing campus housing. This is certainly a free-market victory. We have come a long way from a year ago when the city and university were making it difficult to be a private-property owner in the campus area of Lexington.