Calling it “an impossible task,” LSU begun preparing over the weekend for a potential 32%, or $65 million, cut to its statewide budget, which the university says could further exacerbate an already hurting system that has been pillaged by repeated budget reductions over the years.
In a letter to students, faculty and staff posted to the university’s website, LSU President F. King Alexander says the cuts, if they come to pass, make it “unlikely that any university, college, or center will be able to avoid a direct impact on its student experience, research mission, or outreach efforts.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards has proposed a $131 million cut to higher education in an effort to balance the state’s budget that is about $700 million in the hole. Of that proposed $131 million, LSU would have to swallow half of that, while the Southern University System would get 6% of the reductions, the University of Louisiana System would take 29% and the Louisiana Community and Technical College System would get about 15%.
Of that $65 million in proposed cuts to the LSU system, the flagship campus in Baton Rouge would lose about $19.9 million, or the equivalent of $690 per student or losing 12% of the school’s undergraduate students.
Of the other campuses in the LSU System, the medical schools in Shreveport and New Orleans would each stand to lose about $15.2 million and $12.6 million, respectively, and the AgCenter would lose more than $11 million. The remaining roughly $6 million would be spread between the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the satellite campuses in Alexandria, Shreveport and Eunice.
LSU says that since 2009, state general fund support to the university, including SAVE funds from last year, has dropped 55%, from $254 million to $114 million, which accounts for about 11% of the university’s annual funding—one of the lowest percentages in the country for a public flagship institution.
The university asks that if lawmakers are not able to avoid the drastic cuts, then they should at least give the university full authority over tuition and fees, remove the statutory nonresident fee requirement as the Legislature did for historically black colleges and universities last session, and free LSU from the capital outlay approval threshold for non-state funded projects.
“Despite these trying times, LSU has increased enrollment, improved the diversity of the student body, raised graduation rates above the national average, and increased federal research expenditures,” Alexander notes in his letter, adding that LSU has also instituted policies to try to become financially self-sufficient. “Overall, we have fulfilled the leadership position expected from a flagship university in state higher education.
“But along the way, we have made sacrifices, such as fewer academic programs, loss of faculty and staff, and reductions in support services that would have helped more students be successful—all to address continued budget shortfalls,” he continues. “The ripple effects of LSU’s success will be amplified or muted by the outcomes of this year’s legislative sessions.”
Read the full letter, and see the whole document outlining the effects of the budget cuts.
