To be fair, nearly all ground-based observatories in the US are privately owned and operated. (Actually, they're almost all owned and operated by those evil corporations!) Most of the money that funds these observatories ultimately comes from the federal government, of course, but the fact that they're privately run gives them a great deal more flexibility than NASA-run observatories get. Although space-based observatories are generally more expensive than ground-based observatories, there are privately owned ground-based observatories being built of comparable size to Kepler.
"The Keck Observatory is managed by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose board of directors includes representatives from Caltech and the University of California."
Well, Kepler is a <1m telescope, so as far as ground-based astronomy goes, that's something a reasonably well-funded liberal arts college can afford. Space makes all the difference.
Keep in mind that the cost to design and build a telescope like, say, Keck is roughly on par with the cost to merely launch a spacecraft like Kepler. In total the Kepler mission will end up costing nearly twice what it took to build the flagship ESO VLT observatory which includes 4x 8.2m diameter world-class telescopes. Space is expensive.
Licensing of any technologies developed for the projects or intellectual property created. I'm sure a smart company can figure out a way. If NASA/gov can't keep these projects alive someone with $ needs to step up.
