Protect Higher Ed

[CajunFun]

This from a retired UL faculty member working on the petition:

Our petition asking Governor Jindal and state legislators to restore funding to our Louisiana universities is getting media attention. It has garnered nearly 2000 signatures so far, and new signers are still appearing. This morning I did a telephone interview with Red River Radio explaining the purpose of the petition and the consequences of not adequately funding our institutions of higher education. I hope the interview will take us over the 2000 mark. Your help is much appreciated.

[cajunhawk]

Francis Thompson's lakes and John Alario's golf courses? Oh, crap, forgot...our "reform" Governor anointed Alario our new Senate President.

No wonder this comes with absolutely zero surprise.

http://www.ballot-access.org/2013/02...nning-in-1976/

That god for John Alario, what would the bustling metropolis of Westwego do without their Alario Complex?

[BeauCajun]

That god for John Alario, what would the bustling metropolis of Westwego do without their Alario Complex?

Yep, heaven forbid that the Hornets/Pelicans would have to practice in one of the JPRD gyms.

[CajunFan3406]

Yep, heaven forbid that the Hornets/Pelicans would have to practice in one of the JPRD gyms.

Ah JPRD. Brings back memories of Biddy Basketball tournaments.

[CajunFun]

The trend throughout the nation is for more private and less public/government support for our universities.

We are going through that adjustment period, and I hope that our educational leaders are up to the task.

Performance of RCAF and the UL Foundation & Alumni Association are becoming more critical than ever.

It's interesting that people say run govt like a business. But the reason you run a business in the first place is so that you can manage your family, and your nation.

In what good agribusiness do you sell off the seed stock? And in what good family do you cut back on the kids' education?

In our family, the kids' education is a very high priority, only falling behind the kids' food, clothing, shelter and health. We'll sell everything to make sure our kids get the education they need.

Well, if government's a business we know that every dollar increase in tuition results in some calculable decrease in enrollment. And every drop in higher ed enrollment decreases long-term earning for the state. By quite a lot.

Louisiana has lagged behind all other states in higher education funding, and now we are falling further behind.

At the same time, our state has not grown in the past 25 years while the states across the South are growing quickly, and our employment numbers have not budged in years.

[Boomer]

Yea but the key thing that is immediately needed is to change the constitution to allow across the board or selective cuts and not have anything off the table----the Fed also needs to come to a point where the cutting is done prudently across broad areas and get rid of this "Base line Budgeting" where an auto price is raised for the next years budget---only in Washington is a 4% raise a cut for some items---And Doc will always be one of those liberals you love!!!!

[USL1970]

It's interesting that people say run govt like a business. But the reason you run a business in the first place is so that you can manage your family, and your nation.

In what good agribusiness do you sell off the seed stock? And in what good family do you cut back on the kids' education?

In our family, the kids' education is a very high priority, only falling behind the kids' food, clothing, shelter and health. We'll sell everything to make sure our kids get the education they need.

Well, if government's a business we know that every dollar increase in tuition results in some calculable decrease in enrollment. And every drop in higher ed enrollment decreases long-term earning for the state. By quite a lot.

Louisiana has lagged behind all other states in higher education funding, and now we are falling further behind.

At the same time, our state has not grown in the past 25 years while the states across the South are growing quickly, and our employment numbers have not budged in years.

Most people will not challenge the importance of a good education; however, not all highly educated people are good at running a business or for that matter a university.

The highest academically rated and best run higher educational insitutions in Lousiana (and the nation) are private, and the worst are public, although there are good ones in between. (Tulane & Southern)

The point is for higher education to get better, we need better leaders who are able to run their instituions more efficiently and effectively, and depend less on government and more on private support through tax exempt foundations.

You don't see private institutions paying their worst athletic coach more than their best professors. They don't need money from athletics (as much) to boost university funding like public institutions. The get most of their money from successful alumni who are mostly in some type of successful business.

One biggest problems is that public higher education "raises as much money as it can, and then spends as much as it raises" without any accountability. Some have become a bottomless pit of inefficiency and have been a drain on goverment resources.

The performance goals for funding are so low, it is really difficult not to qualify for tuition increases.

The debate is not about the importance of education.

It's about a seamingly bottomless pit for taxpayer funding of poorly performing higher educational instituions in the state.

Your train of thought is bascially how we got into this mess.

Every local politician (especially LSU) wanted a college in his or her hometown because it would be an asset to the economy and community. The more universities, the more graduates, the better the economy, and so forth.

As a result, we have too many universities chasing to few dollars. And these ubiquitous universities all seem to want a masters or Phd program which are also expensive to fund as they have fewer students (no economies of scale).

So we now have cheap degree programs all over the state. Again too many institutions, all advocating more government (taxpayer) funding. And most of these instituitions graduate less than half of their students in 6 years!

If we want to get serious about education, we need better leaders and fewer, but better instituions that are able to perform and raise money from private or business sources, and depend less on goverment support.

Higher education now views "students" as "consumers," and it seems that having some business savy as a leader would be an asset in running a university.

[Oiler]

Yep. Too many universities in Louisiana our biggest problem. All three higher education systems in Louisiana will have to go broke before anything changes. The legislature will never eliminate an established university.

[VObserver]

It's interesting that people say run govt like a business. But the reason you run a business in the first place is so that you can manage your family, and your nation.

In what good agribusiness do you sell off the seed stock? And in what good family do you cut back on the kids' education?

In our family, the kids' education is a very high priority, only falling behind the kids' food, clothing, shelter and health. We'll sell everything to make sure our kids get the education they need.

Well, if government's a business we know that every dollar increase in tuition results in some calculable decrease in enrollment. And every drop in higher ed enrollment decreases long-term earning for the state. By quite a lot.

Louisiana has lagged behind all other states in higher education funding, and now we are falling further behind.

At the same time, our state has not grown in the past 25 years while the states across the South are growing quickly, and our employment numbers have not budged in years.

There is no empirical evidence to support the assertion that tuition increases at public universities is directly linked to enrollment decreases, and anecdotal evidence suggests the exact opposite.

We do not lag behind in higher ed funding, except in the sense that we have this strange notion that students should not have to pay for it; we just have always had a very bad plan for higher ed. There is no reason for a state the size/population of Louisiana to have more than 4 public universities.

Our employment numbers are much more closely related to the business unfriendly taxation policies of this state than they are to any shortfall in higher ed funding.

[Cajunrunner]

Louisiana has lagged behind all other states in higher education funding, and now we are falling further behind.

At the same time, our state has not grown in the past 25 years while the states across the South are growing quickly, and our employment numbers have not budged in years.

So what's your solution? And again, why is it that college tuition costs and funding needs are rising much faster than inflation?