The Louisiana governor,Bobby Jindal, just announced major budget cuts for all public Louisiana universities such as the University of Louisiana at Monroe ULM, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ULL, Louisiana Tech, the University of New Orleans and the state flagship university,LSU A&M. How will this effect the quality of public education in the state and also the each school's athletic programs?

(02-10-2015 04:27 PM)Savacool Wrote:  The Louisiana governor,Bobby Jindal, just announced major budget cuts for all public Louisiana universities such as the University of Louisiana at Monroe ULM, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ULL, Louisiana Tech, the University of New Orleans and the state flagship university,LSU A&M. How will this effect the quality of public education in the state and also the each school's athletic programs?

Louisiana priorities tell me that sports will be fine, academics will start to crater (or they will have to focus their missions narrowly).

(02-10-2015 04:27 PM)Savacool Wrote:  The Louisiana governor,Bobby Jindal, just announced major budget cuts for all public Louisiana universities such as the University of Louisiana at Monroe ULM, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ULL, Louisiana Tech, the University of New Orleans and the state flagship university,LSU A&M. How will this effect the quality of public education in the state and also the each school's athletic programs?

Uh, with these cuts, college graduates won't know how to properly use the words affect and effect anymore ?

(02-10-2015 05:00 PM)goofus Wrote:  

(02-10-2015 04:27 PM)Savacool Wrote:  The Louisiana governor,Bobby Jindal, just announced major budget cuts for all public Louisiana universities such as the University of Louisiana at Monroe ULM, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ULL, Louisiana Tech, the University of New Orleans and the state flagship university,LSU A&M. How will this effect the quality of public education in the state and also the each school's athletic programs?

Uh, with these cuts, college graduates won't know how to properly use the words affect and effect anymore ?

Grammar Nazi Award to you Sir.

Tuition creeps up...

Like it is in every state where public funding is slowly slipping away.

Welcome to the tuition bubble!

LSU outlines dire budget scenarios, layoffs and course cuts
by Melinda Deslatte
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Feb. 08, 2015
Widespread layoffs, hundreds of classes eliminated, academic programs jettisoned and a flagship university that can't compete with its peers around the nation - those are among the grim scenarios LSU leaders outlined in internal documents as the threat of budget cuts looms.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration is considering deep budget slashing to higher education for the fiscal year that begins July 1 to help close a $1.6 billion shortfall.

LSU campuses from Shreveport to New Orleans were asked to explain how a reduction between 35 percent and 40 percent in state financing - about $141.5 million to the university system - would affect their operations. The documents, compiled for LSU system President F. King Alexander, were obtained through a public records request.

The potential implications of such hefty cuts were summed up in stark terms: 1,433 faculty and staff jobs eliminated; 1,572 courses cut; 28 academic programs shut down across campuses; and six institutions declaring some form of financial emergency.

At the system's flagship university in Baton Rouge, the documents say 27 percent of faculty positions would have to be cut, along with 1,400 classes, jeopardizing the accreditation of the engineering and business colleges. Some campus buildings would be closed.

"These severe cuts would change LSU's mission as a public research and land-grant university. It will no longer be capable of competing with America's significant public universities and will find itself dramatically behind the rest of the nation," the documents say.

The scenario goes on to say that budget cuts of 35 percent or more to LSU's main campus would damage educational quality and deteriorate the university's ability to compete with its peers, "significantly impacting the value of an LSU degree for our students."

The documents also describe ripple effects, saying reductions in course offerings and academic programs would make it more difficult for students to finish their degrees and discourage some students from enrolling at all.

That could mean higher levels of student debt for those students who take longer to wrap up their classes, plus lost tuition revenue for campuses when other potential students choose not to attend, campus leaders said in their write-ups.

The LSU system includes the main campus in Baton Rouge and smaller campuses in Alexandria, Shreveport and Eunice, along with medical schools in New Orleans and Shreveport, a biomedical research center, an agricultural center and a law school.

Each campus offered its own lists of how the cuts would be divvied up.

LSU at Alexandria worried its entire campus could lose accreditation. LSU-Eunice said it would be forced to choose between closing its entire health sciences division that serves 30 percent of its students or lose 10 individual programs. The Shreveport campus said it would have to cut one-fourth of all academic programs.

LSU Law Center Chancellor Jack Weiss described the reductions as "extremely severe if not catastrophic." He said he'd have to cut summer stipends, an apprenticeship program, research grants and a law clinic, and furlough faculty and staff.

At least five agricultural research stations and the parish-based extension program run by the LSU Agricultural Center would be shuttered, in a state where agriculture is one of the largest industries, according to the documents.

The university system's well-known research institute, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, said cuts of the magnitude proposed would force it to cut 191 jobs, suspend some of its work on chronic diseases and mothball 48 percent of its valuable research space.

Executive Director William Cefalu said scientists would leave, taking their research and grant dollars with them, worsening the impact of the cuts.

(02-10-2015 06:43 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Tuition creeps up...

Like it is in every state where public funding is slowly slipping away.

Welcome to the tuition bubble!

That is exactly what will happen and there is a certain portion of our country that doesn't particularly mind that College Degrees from such Institutions will once again be more scarce than they are these days.

Public universities are like governments, they can never have less. With all of the endowments they have they should not need to be able to use a lot of the people's money. Guess those professors and presidents won't keep getting their 15% raise year after year. Which is why tuition has been 5 times the rate of inflation. How many programs are actually necessary?
Tuition bubble indeed. Perhaps it is needed to bring back reality to the public colleges and be more efficient like private universities have to do.
I'm sure that the universities will make cuts in the wrong places to show how much they are hurting, but since quite a few people don't go to college or go via an alternate route, there complaints won't get any sympathy.

S C State may shut down for a year.

http://www.wistv.com/story/28073493/hous...iscal-year

(02-10-2015 06:30 PM)USFRamenu Wrote:  

(02-10-2015 05:00 PM)goofus Wrote:  

(02-10-2015 04:27 PM)Savacool Wrote:  The Louisiana governor,Bobby Jindal, just announced major budget cuts for all public Louisiana universities such as the University of Louisiana at Monroe ULM, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ULL, Louisiana Tech, the University of New Orleans and the state flagship university,LSU A&M. How will this effect the quality of public education in the state and also the each school's athletic programs?

Uh, with these cuts, college graduates won't know how to properly use the words affect and effect anymore ?

Grammar Nazi Award to you Sir.

I normally would let that slide, but since it was included in a question about the quality of public education, its hard to let that go.

(02-10-2015 11:40 PM)Dman Wrote:  S C State may shut down for a year.

http://www.wistv.com/story/28073493/hous...iscal-year

I don't think they will close the doors, but IMO this is a sign that SC State's days of being an independent institution are just about over. As I said on the Spin Room thread I started the South Carolina system will probably make a play for them, but I believe that with their mission they should give them to Clemson. It would strengthen some of their core programs, put the state's two land grants under one board, and most likely allow them to keep the SC State identity rather than being USC-Orangeburg.

South Carolina State? Weren't they the ones who seriously considered cutting basketball?

(02-11-2015 01:05 AM)jdgaucho Wrote:  South Carolina State? Weren't they the ones who seriously considered cutting basketball?

Yes.

To be honest the only thing at the entire University that works the way it should is the football program, and that is only because of the efforts of former coach Willie Jeffries and current coach Buddy Pough.

(02-11-2015 12:39 AM)goofus Wrote:  

(02-10-2015 06:30 PM)USFRamenu Wrote:  

(02-10-2015 05:00 PM)goofus Wrote:  

(02-10-2015 04:27 PM)Savacool Wrote:  The Louisiana governor,Bobby Jindal, just announced major budget cuts for all public Louisiana universities such as the University of Louisiana at Monroe ULM, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette ULL, Louisiana Tech, the University of New Orleans and the state flagship university,LSU A&M. How will this effect the quality of public education in the state and also the each school's athletic programs?

Uh, with these cuts, college graduates won't know how to properly use the words affect and effect anymore ?

Grammar Nazi Award to you Sir.

I normally would let that slide, but since it was included in a question about the quality of public education, its hard to let that go.

I'm surprised that you went after affect/effect, but not what's bold.

Since this thread is really about Tulane, I have some questions related to NJ South.

When does Tulane open the new stadium? It's great to see the Wave investing in the program. I think that TU has amazing amounts of potential and it would be fun to see it realized. Also, who coaches Tulane these days, and is he any good?

Nothing surprising.

The greatest generation is no longer a significant voting bloc. The pre-boomers are why we have extensive state higher ed systems, the boomers as a group don't care about state supported higher ed and will reward politicians who vote against such state spending and based on the trends higher ed probably needs to hunker in for a hard decade or two of funding battles.

Louisiana went all in on higher ed from the start of the Great Depression to about 1970 chartering a significant number of schools.

You have Grambling State, Louisiana Tech and ULM all within about 30 miles. In Baton Rouge you have LSU, Southern and Baton Rouge Community College, in New Orleans you have UNO, Southern-New Orleans and Delgado Community College. Lafayette has UL Lafayette and South Louisiana Community College. Lake Charles has McNeese State and SOWELA Technical College. Shreveport and Bossier have three junior colleges LSU-Shreveport, Southern-Shreveport and Bossier Parish Community College.

That level of overlap is incredible and I suspect part of the thinking is to just starve the schools into reorganizing since it seems unlikely that it can be done politically.

(02-11-2015 03:08 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Nothing surprising.

The greatest generation is no longer a significant voting bloc. The pre-boomers are why we have extensive state higher ed systems, the boomers as a group don't care about state supported higher ed and will reward politicians who vote against such state spending and based on the trends higher ed probably needs to hunker in for a hard decade or two of funding battles.

Louisiana went all in on higher ed from the start of the Great Depression to about 1970 chartering a significant number of schools.

You have Grambling State, Louisiana Tech and ULM all within about 30 miles. In Baton Rouge you have LSU, Southern and Baton Rouge Community College, in New Orleans you have UNO, Southern-New Orleans and Delgado Community College. Lafayette has UL Lafayette and South Louisiana Community College. Lake Charles has McNeese State and SOWELA Technical College. Shreveport and Bossier have three junior colleges LSU-Shreveport, Southern-Shreveport and Bossier Parish Community College.

That level of overlap is incredible and I suspect part of the thinking is to just starve the schools into reorganizing since it seems unlikely that it can be done politically.

That is exactly what is going on.......we will be affected academically but not badly....Athletically as our budget continues to grow because of revenues raised privately our monies received from the State have decreased....and will continue to do so.

Sorry to get politcial, this is Bobby Jindal and the Tea Party at work. That, and the restrictions of the Louisiana Constitution of 1973.

Jindal entered office with about an $800 million dollar budget surplus. He immediately gave it back to the taxpayers as a refund, based upon a projection that oil prices would remain the same (memory is that it was $120/barrel).

Some economists outside of his circle said that this was foolish, that prices would not stay as projected and a refund was a dangerous move. Their advice was ignored and ridiculed by the Jindal insiders and the refund went ahead. Oops, oil prices (which accounts for much of Louisiana state revenues) did indeed drop.

Well, Louisiana has had a huge budget deficit ever since. Jindal refuses to raise a single tax or seek revenue sources (per the Tea Party ideology) and is making a feeble and sad "run" for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.

For about five years, Jindal has been raiding all places he can find a dollar to plug as "one time cash" into the annual budget hole. He can only mainly cut education and health care because of the terms and restrictions of the Louisiana Constitution.

He has cut and cut and cut in those areas for five years. He sold state vehicles and now has state employees lease them every day from Enterprise. He sold some buildings and the state now leases them back.

He stripped state agencies of Federal funds (even though he decries the Feds daily) and instead of using the Federal funds as designed, he plugs the money as "one time cash" into the deficit every year.

Well, the continued cuts to education and health care are now beginning to really, really hurt Louisiana, including its state flagship and economic engine, LSU.

After all of that, Louisiana is looking at a budget shortfall/deficit of at least $1.6 billion this legislative session. It is a really bad situation.

The only other options are to raise taxes (Verboten by the Tea Party ideology), have a Constitutional Convention to draft a new state constitution (allowing for more cuts in areas other than education and health care) or cut places like LSU to and through the bone.

Many Louisiana Republicans cannot stand the guy and his poll ratings in Louisiana are lower than that of Barack Obama, as hard as that is to believe.

He is out of the state most of the time, running his "campaign" in places like Iowa.

Many LSU alumni and fans are horrified at what the continued budget cuts have done and apparently will do in the future to the university.

(02-11-2015 02:30 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  Since this thread is really about Tulane, I have some questions related to NJ South.

When does Tulane open the new stadium? It's great to see the Wave investing in the program. I think that TU has amazing amounts of potential and it would be fun to see it realized. Also, who coaches Tulane these days, and is he any good?

Post of the day. Maybe post of the week.

Anyway, NJSouth opened its football stadium about 5 months ago and proved to be very popular with fans. We had 6 home games and the first 3 or 4 of them were well-attended. As the season fell apart on the field (3-9), obviously fewer people showed up for the late-season games.

Our HC is Curtis Johnson. All in all, I think he has made a positive impression, but we definitely need to see some more W's. The OOC schedule this past season had Duke, Georgia Tech, and Rutgers, all 3 of which had much, MUCH better-than-average seasons. Also, both of the AAC teams that were not on the schedule (SMU and USF) had bad years (1-11 and 4-8)

(02-11-2015 08:06 AM)TerryD Wrote:  Sorry to get politcial, this is Bobby Jindal and the Tea Party at work. That, and the restrictions of the Louisiana Constitution of 1973.

Jindal entered office with about an $800 million dollar budget surplus. He immediately gave it back to the taxpayers as a refund, based upon a projection that oil prices would remain the same (memory is that it was $120/barrel).

Some economists outside of his circle said that this was foolish, that prices would not stay as projected and a refund was a dangerous move. Their advice was ignored and ridiculed by the Jindal insiders and the refund went ahead. Oops, oil prices (which accounts for much of Louisiana state revenues) did indeed drop.

Well, Louisiana has had a huge budget deficit ever since. Jindal refuses to raise a single tax or seek revenue sources (per the Tea Party ideology) and is making a feeble and sad "run" for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.

For about five years, Jindal has been raiding all places he can find a dollar to plug as "one time cash" into the annual budget hole. He can only mainly cut education and health care because of the terms and restrictions of the Louisiana Constitution.

He has cut and cut and cut in those areas for five years. He sold state vehicles and now has state employees lease them every day from Enterprise. He sold some buildings and the state now leases them back.

He stripped state agencies of Federal funds (even though he decries the Feds daily) and instead of using the Federal funds as designed, he plugs the money as "one time cash" into the deficit every year.

Well, the continued cuts to education and health care are now beginning to really, really hurt Louisiana, including its state flagship and economic engine, LSU.

After all of that, Louisiana is looking at a budget shortfall/deficit of at least $1.6 billion this legislative session. It is a really bad situation.

The only other options are to raise taxes (Verboten by the Tea Party ideology), have a Constitutional Convention to draft a new state constitution (allowing for more cuts in areas other than education and health care) or cut places like LSU to and through the bone.

Many Louisiana Republicans cannot stand the guy and his poll ratings in Louisiana are lower than that of Barack Obama, as hard as that is to believe.

He is out of the state most of the time, running his "campaign" in places like Iowa.

Many LSU alumni and fans are horrified at what the continued budget cuts have done and apparently will do in the future to the university.

Are the cuts happening at the Louisiana public universities set in stone yet, or is this part of the negotiations to ultimately come to a compromise? What is happening in Louisiana has already hit PA several years ago. Pitt and PSU in state tuitions are the highest among all public universities. Assuming this is primarily "negotiating in the media", my guess is the majority of the funding shortfalls will be made up in tuition hikes - assuming there isn't something in the constitution that caps tuition rate increases.