A Grim Budget Picture Means Even More Pain for Louisiana’s Colleges

Gerald Herbert, AP Images

There are several ways to describe how deeply Louisiana has cut appropriations for higher education since 2008: By $684 million. More than 40 percent. The steepest reductions in the nation. Cuts so deep that a near doubling of tuition hasn’t made up the difference.

And after all the pain that the state’s public colleges have endured, there’s little relief in sight. State legislators are now in a special session to decide how much more to cut from higher education and other areas of state spending to close an estimated $900-million shortfall for the current fiscal year.

Though there are a range of options, there is little expectation that lawmakers can find solutions that would spare the state’s public colleges. At the very least, higher education will face a $70-million cut in the remainder of the current budget year, which includes an estimated $28-million cut in the state’s popular merit-based college-scholarship program.

And things get worse for the budget year that begins on July 1: The state is projecting a $2-billion gap, which will almost certainly come with calls for more cuts at public colleges.

Higher-education leaders and the state’s newly elected governor, John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, have warned of the consequences of more budget cuts. The most dire predictions include shutting down Louisiana State University’s campuses before the end of the semester.

Some Republican legislators have called those warnings exaggerations that are meant to scare them and the public. In addition, they are asking public colleges in the state to consider ways to become more efficient, such as merging campuses or paring their academic offerings.

State Sen. Dan W. Morrish, a Republican who is chairman of his chamber’s education committee, agrees that higher education can do more to be efficient, including better coordination among the state’s four public-college systems.

But unlike some in his party, he doesn’t blame the colleges for the budget predicament. “This Legislature and the previous administration have cut higher education more than it’s ever been cut,” he said. “For us to blame them and almost humiliate them is a disgrace,” he added.

F. King Alexander, president of the Louisiana State University system, said long-term solutions aren’t even on his mind right now, as he and other education leaders are hoping just to make it to the end of the current fiscal year without having to close campuses early.

“If we can’t make our May payroll, there are very few institutions in the state that will be able to,” said Mr. Alexander, who has become an outspoken advocate to preserve state money for higher education.

Major Disruptions

This is the second year that Mr. Alexander and others have tried to fend off major cuts in higher education. Last year the governor then in office, Bobby Jindal, a Republican, proposed an 82-percent cut for public colleges. Legislators and the governor’s office negotiated a way to avoid those cuts by eliminating some tax incentives for businesses, increasing cigarette taxes, and creating a new “student fee” that was actually paid by the state, not students.

But those measures did nothing to remedy the state’s continuing fiscal crisis, which has been caused by low oil prices, an abundance of questionable business incentives, and lawmakers’ reluctance to increase taxes on any segment of the populace, said Barry Erwin, president of the nonpartisan Council for a Better Louisiana.

The proposed midyear cuts for higher education, not including the loss of the state scholarship money, could be as high as $131 million — a reduction of nearly one-third that would cause major disruptions in all of the state’s higher-education systems.

Under that worst-case scenario, the Louisiana Community and Technical College System would lose $20 million and have to lay off 1,200 employees, according to information from the state’s Board of Regents.

The Southern University system would have to cut some 200 nontenured faculty and staff members, plus 125 adjunct and clinical instructors, and cancel all summer classes to offset its projected cut of more than $4.6 million.

The University of Louisiana system, which faces a reduction of $38 million, warns that the worst budget cuts could imperil its accreditation and cause several of its campuses to declare financial exigency — often a precursor to laying off tenured faculty members.

For the Louisiana State University system, the midyear cuts could be $65 million. Nearly $20 million of that would come from the flagship campus, at Baton Rouge — the equivalent of cutting 135 faculty lines, eliminating some 275 courses, and losing nearly $10 million more in research grants, according to projections by the system.

The regional accreditor that oversees the state’s public colleges has warned that the financial instability could lead to sanctions or even revoking the accreditation of colleges. “Public sanctions have a chilling effect on enrollment of potential students, and withdrawal of accreditation results in the loss of federal financial aid,” Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, said in a letter to state officials.

Joseph C. Rallo, the state commissioner of higher education, said the warnings were far from hyperbole. “The closer you get to the worst case,” campuses simply won’t be able to make their payrolls and would in some cases have to cancel classes.

Such a scenario could even hamper the hallowed Louisiana State football team in the fall: If athletes don’t have complete grades for the semester, they will be ineligible to play, Mr. Rallo said.

Partisan Conflict

While few people believe that lawmakers would allow that to happen, the proposed cuts are already causing public concern over the future of the state’s merit-scholarship program, the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS. The state has suspended payments for all of this year’s awards, leaving colleges to absorb a $28-million loss.

Governor Edwards, who was elected in November, has proposed spending just $65 million on the program next year — far short of the program’s usual cost of more than $200 million.

“I don’t think any legislators think this is OK,” said Mr. Rallo. “None of them want to go back to their constituents and say they eliminated the scholarship program.”

But solutions to the current shortfall may run into a wall of partisan conflict. While the Democratic governor has proposed several measures to increase taxes or remove tax breaks, Republicans in the state’s House of Representatives have been most vocal about their opposition to increasing tax revenue without some accompanying cuts in spending.

Some legislators have called for merging or even closing some campuses to deal with what they see as inefficiency in the public-college systems. Those proposals hint at a long-running complaint that the state has too many colleges. There are 17 four-year colleges in the state and 13 community and technical colleges.

“I don’t think the talk is really serious about shutting down campuses,” said Mr. Erwin, of the Council for a Better Louisiana. But lawmakers may want higher education to bring some sort of proposal to eliminate duplicate programs between nearby colleges.

Information from the Board of Regents indicates that the public systems have already eliminated some 5,000 employees since 2009 and eliminated or consolidated nearly 600 academic programs. In addition, online course and degree offerings have increased by about 44 percent.

Mr. Erwin and others have mentioned that smaller campuses, in particular, should create “centers of excellence.” Such measures would not be a “huge restructuring,” he said, but they would send a message to the state’s residents that the colleges are focused on their core mission and on creating an educated work force.

Senator Morrish said he “doesn’t buy” the argument that the state has too many colleges. And efforts to merge campuses in the past have failed in the Legislature.

Instead, he said, the colleges should focus on shared administrative services between campuses, and moving forward with agreements for the transfer of credits.

The senator is also sponsoring one of several bills meant to make the TOPS scholarship more financially sound — by capping the award, which is now tied to the increases in tuition — and to give the universities control of their tuition. Those measures would give the Louisiana State campus at Baton Rouge, for example, the ability to be more selective in admissions and to raise more revenue on its own. At the same time, that could be an incentive for some better-prepared students to attend other institutions in the state, Mr. Morrish said.

Mr. Alexander said he’s not opposed to those options. “When legislators control both your appropriations and your tuition,” he said, “it’s like a boa constrictor around your neck.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.