Tiny Midway College Steps Up

The key is going to be scholarships to cover the $30,000-plus tuition, but this is still the kind of private-sector initiative that serves a public purpose that liberals can applaud.

Midway College rolled out plans Monday to open a pharmacy school in the heart of Appalachia, vying for a role in solving a nagging problem of filling pharmacist jobs in the state.

Officials of the Midway, in Central Kentucky’s Woodford County, said the pharmacy school is set to open in August 2011 in Paintsville, about two hours from the college's main campus.

Its four-year pharmacy program will enroll up to 80 students a year, with a maximum enrollment of 320 when fully operational.

Midway President William B. Drake Jr. called the projected $20 million startup venture one of the biggest decisions ever for the private college, whose roots predate the Civil War and whose current enrollment is about 1,800.

“We're going to specifically focus on students from Appalachia initially, and then from Kentucky,” Drake said in an interview. “Because our whole goal in this is to provide pharmacists for Appalachia.”

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