A Tale of Two Universities

[Policarp]

Are the cuts.....true cuts? or as politicians do it. Cut = A decrease in the annual increase

[CajunRebel]

Are the cuts.....true cuts? or as politicians do it. Cut = A decrease in the annual increase

True cuts.

[ZoomZoom]

Politicians will never shutter a university in Louisiana. Nor will they merge, since the higher up the food chain, those folks tend to come out of the monster politics is. Most know the skeletons.

[SlickRick]

I HOPE UL isn’t this stupid.

https://bsky.app/profile/factcheckaglandry.bsky.social

I hope you don't go to blue sky for news...!

[SlickRick]

Authement shut down gymnastics (trampoline) wrestling and weightlifting.

He was a dick.

[Duckster]

I think everyone here is missing the bigger story. Over the past 30 years the State of Louisiana has slashed the hell out of higher ed funding and I don't think people understand just how bad it has gotten. I found this graph that shows a 38% reduction from 2008-2018. However, I'm pretty sure there were major cuts before 2008, and I know for a fact that they are cutting another $250 million next year. So the actual level of cuts since Authement and Reneau started is far higher than 38%.



With cuts like these, why is anyone surprised that so many Louisiana universities are having such deep financial struggles?

Back in the day, a Louisiana university could thrive by just focusing on education. Today, that's not good enough. You have to be in the revenue generation business as well. If you can't generate revenue, you're going to decline as an institution.

Thankfully, we are better positioned to do this than most other La universities. We have NIRC and other research revenue, good real estate that is ripe for development, lots of student housing, etc. These cuts will weaken us, but they won't devastate us. Most other La schools won't be so lucky.

To my knowledge, Tech is going to be one of the universities that doesn't have that revenue to fall back on. It is hard to make money in a small town. I think this is why Tech is so worried about their athletic future. G5 athletics will always need to be subsidized. Tech might not have the resources to subsidize it AND keep the lights on.

Not being an apologist for the State nor taking issue with anything written, however didn't TOPS funding and multiple tuition increases the past ten years offset quite a bit of these funding reductions? Taxpayers still footing the bills one way or the other.

Its been said on this forum before, but there needs to be serious reform efforts towards consolidation of administrative overhead in the statewide UL & LSU Systems. Finance, HR, VP's of this, that and the other, etc should be targets for cuts. Each campus operating in a silo is grossly inefficient considering today's technology. If the system won't reform itself and or the legislature won't push it, the governor will need to lead on forcing this issue as its doubtful UL & McNeese or latech/ULM/Grambling/NSU will suddenly collaborate on working together towards consolidating Admin overhead/functions for the greater good.

[ZoomZoom]

I hope you don't go to blue sky for news...!

Uh, no. Was on the SBC board.

[CajunRebel]

Not being an apologist for the State nor taking issue with anything written, however didn't TOPS funding and multiple tuition increases the past ten years offset quite a bit of these funding reductions? Taxpayers still footing the bills one way or the other.

Its been said on this forum before, but there needs to be serious reform efforts towards consolidation of administrative overhead in the statewide UL & LSU Systems. Finance, HR, VP's of this, that and the other, etc should be targets for cuts. Each campus operating in a silo is grossly inefficient considering today's technology. If the system won't reform itself and or the legislature won't push it, the governor will need to lead on forcing this issue as its doubtful UL & McNeese or latech/ULM/Grambling/NSU will suddenly collaborate on working together towards consolidating Admin overhead/functions for the greater good.

Yes, tuition increases have offset the cuts. But tuition increases also lead to enrollment declines which also means less revenue.

I’m personally not convinced that consolidating universities is an answer. Eliminating administrative redundancies might save money, but how does any university absorb another without spending hundreds of millions in new infrastructure to accommodate all the new students?

[Turbine]

Yes, tuition increases have offset the cuts. But tuition increases also lead to enrollment declines which also means less revenue.

I’m personally not convinced that consolidating universities is an answer. Eliminating administrative redundancies might save money, but how does any university absorb another without spending hundreds of millions in new infrastructure to accommodate all the new students?

There are ways to finance investments.

Then new students = new revenue

[JamesTheJeweler]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… "

I was thinking about this post:


In a way, all of our presidents were 'the best'… because each served at different times, faced different problems, and created progress in different ways. Even Lethar Frazar, a Huey Long hack, tripled the number of buildings on campus in his brief 3 years.

People here still bash Authément. When Ray became president, we were broke.* But he had a crazy idea, that we would grow into a serious university. And he had an iron will. He focused our ridiculous resources on computer science, then biology, and later engineering, disciplines where we had some talent, and which had great upsides for research funding. He also built our first research park (LSU copied us); a University Art Museum (LSU copied us); he, with the help of Al Lamson greatly expanded the Foundation (LSU copied us); he pioneered new PhDs; he created the UL Press; he created Francophone Studies; he hired Ernest Gaines, and created numerous other things that are contributing to our current successes.

To do this, Ray underfed athletics. There just wasn't enough to go around. But don't miss the fact that he didn't starve athletics. Also, don't overlook the fact that he took the risk on going 1A in 1978, while all of our rivals went 1AA. To my mind, these decisions imply that he understood that athletics would be important... but they wouldn't be first. Athletics would have to wait their turn.

I have been arguing with you knuckleheads for years: Which comes first, academics or athletics? Some of you obviously majored in tap-dancing at UL, because you keep coming back with, "You can have both."

No. No you can't. You can't have both, not all the time.

Because Ars longa, ludo brevis est.† Nobody wins at sports all the time, teams go from being world-beaters to also-rans, sometimes in a single year. In contrast, strong academics have a very long half-life… and success in one area bleeds over from college to college, and everything rises. By investing in academics first, you create a solid foundation for athletics.

So athletics has to come later.

Behold Louisiana Tech. I read the new post about Tech downgrading athletics, and my first thought was, That will never fly politically.

But then I realized, it may not matter. Tech may be in so much financial trouble that they have no choice.

Some of you have argued loudly, "Winning solves all problems." I suspect Dan Reneau, Tech's president from 1987 to 2013, agreed with you. Because while Ray was doggedly bending our finances to build academics, and holding the line and underfunding athletics, Reneau did the opposite. He invested Tech's money in athletics, and underfed academics. For a while, he succeeded: Tech kept taking big risks, and they kept winning.

Until they didn't.

Now the chickens have come to roost. The money they bet on athletics didn't pay off in the long run. Winning didn't solve all of Tech's problems. It's not clear that winning solved any of their problems, not in the long-run.

Because after Reneau left, things started to slide. Now Tech is in deep financial straits, their athletics have declined, and their once-proud engineering program is also in disarray. And the fact that there is even a rumor of cutting Tech athletics, suggests that the deficit may be too much for even Jim Davison to cover.

Tech borrowed against their solid academics, believing that winning in sports would get it all back later. We see what happened. Tech bet wrong.

And now, tough choices will have to be made up in Ruston.

*I have recently come across information that a lot of UL's troubles of the 1960's and 1970's may have been the result of our decision to desegregate in 1954… including our lack of political support. Desegregation may have also cost us the New Iberia airfield; and it is even possible that the NCAA death penalty resulted from the same decision.

†The quote is Ars longa, vita brevis est: Art is long, life is short. I substituted 'ludo', 'the game.' As for 'ars,' you will remember that in the 1950's all of SLI was 'liberal arts,' sciences included. The Ray P. Authément College of Sciences was only created 50 years ago. So by 'ars,' I am suggesting all academics.

Fun, you always have solid posts. Interesting and informative. Glad you're on our team.

[JamesTheJeweler]

These discussions are always fun. Although I can’t help but see this as a little disingenuous. Any longterm benefits of athletics are consistently written off as anecdotal. However, now that we are talking about the supposed demise of an athletic department and its effect on a university we are discussing a rumor generated from basically barroom conversation as having enough validity to draw conclusions.

While I'm handing out compliments, you too, Zep. I can generally read your comments and get a balanced, logical take. Unlike mine that are generally off the cuff, half joking/trolling, and mostly insufferable.

[JamesTheJeweler]

Who isn't a simpleton? I certainly would not exclude myself. In a few areas where I have deep experience, I am simply less of a simpleton than I was in the past.

I ask questions, I make observations. A few people find them interesting. I apologize if you do not, it was not my intention to offend anyone.

If we can overlook my mistakes, I would be most interested in your thoughts on the matter. Ray and Reneau went opposite directions. What do you think of the outcomes? Are they the result of different vision and leadership, or have we simply been fortunate?

And if my analysis and/or conclusion are in error, what do you think would be a more useful approach?

I do not ask these sarcastically or cynically. I am sincerely interested in well-stated objections.

I dont think you're completely wrong on the matter, but I don't think it's as black and white as you may have painted it. There are many variables in this tale and I don't think we can just take it at face value. While I'm glad we had an Authement that was passionate about bulldogging (pardon the pun) his way to pushing the university to greater heights, I believe he was very myopic in his views on athletics. His agenda to push academics didn't mean he had to suppress athletics. And that is where a lot of disdain is leveled his way. It would have been one thing to push academics, and simply not care or do nothing for the betterment of our athletic program, but to go out of his way to suppress athletics is where I draw my ire from. So, while we can praise Dr A. for his immeasurable contributions to our academics, we can also credit him for why our athletics has suffered so bad to this day. His tenure, a dichotomy indeed, "the best of times, the worst of times"