Louisiana politics is known for colorful personalities and big attitudes. It’s not usually the place where a guy with a doctorate in education policy makes a splash.
But F. King Alexander, chancellor of Louisiana State University’s flagship campus, in Baton Rouge, is making a name for himself as an outspoken critic of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposed budget, which recommends a mammoth 82-percent cut in higher education.
The chancellor — who is also president of the LSU system — has found an effective way to get his message out, grabbing headlines with warnings about the dire consequences of those cuts, said Jeremy Alford, the publisher of LaPolitics.com, a website that covers the state political scene. “King Alexander has been equal parts town crier and figurehead,” Mr. Alford said.
There is evidence that state politicians are listening. With less than a month left in the legislative session, the state’s House of Representatives has passed a number of measures to ease the higher-education cuts by reducing tax credits for businesses and raising the tax on cigarettes. The state’s Senate has not taken up the measures.
Mr. Alexander’s willingness to assume an outsize role in debates about both state and national policy has earned him his share of detractors. But he says it’s time for leaders of public higher education to speak out on state budgets or face the long-term consequences of getting no state money.
“Unfortunately, I’ve got a lot of my colleagues who are more apt to just throw in the towel and say, Yeah, the states are getting out, we just have to be more creative,” Mr. Alexander said in an interview.
Bad Budget on the Bayou?
Louisiana’s budget situation is among the direst in the nation this year. A combination of falling oil prices and previously enacted tax cuts and credits has blown a $1.6-billion hole in state revenues.
Even with a deficit of that size, the proposed cuts in higher-education spending shocked many in the state, especially given reductions in previous years. Since 2010, Louisiana has cut that spending by more than 13 percent, according to figures from the Grapevine Project at Illinois State University. Only Arizona has made larger reductions, according to the project’s annual report on higher-education appropriations, and Louisiana is one of just nine states spending less on higher education than it was five years ago.
Since the beginning of the recession, per-student appropriations have fallen more than 40 percent, according to figures from the State Higher Education Executive Officers association.
This year’s budget proposal was demoralizing to faculty members and students alike, said Kevin L. Cope, a professor of English at the system’s Baton Rouge campus, who is president of the Faculty Senate.
And the budget proposal shows that Mr. Jindal, a Republican, is more interested in courting antitax advocates nationally than in protecting his state’s residents, Mr. Cope said: “He is a local strongman who doesn’t care about his local constituency. He’s willing to go to any length to avoid raising taxes.”
Speaking His Mind
Mr. Alexander is careful not to criticize the governor. He says he’s sure Mr. Jindal wants to see the budget situation worked out in a way that protects the colleges. But the chancellor is not shy about blasting the state’s tax policies — especially the generous tax credits Louisiana offers to what he describes as “low-budget movies that don’t do the state any good at all.”
“My favorite is Navy Seals vs. Zombies,” Mr. Alexander said, explaining that the film — with an estimated budget of $5 million, according to the Internet Movie Database — got credits of more than a million dollars. “There are a lot of people benefiting from our state budget who in retrospect should not be benefiting as much as they are,” the chancellor said.
That willingness to speak frankly is part of Mr. Alexander’s appeal, but it has also stirred some controversy.
Late last month, Mr. Alexander raised the possibility that Louisiana State would file for financial exigency, which would allow the institution to fire tenured faculty members. Not long afterward, the system canceled a bond sale over investors’ concerns about that possibility.
While some were concerned about the chancellor’s remarks, Mr. Cope said they were “an effort to show the economic trajectory to legislators.”
Mr. Alexander said that financial exigency would be used only in a worst-case scenario. (That term has particular resonance in Louisiana, where colleges reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, used it to justify layoffs of tenured faculty members, drawing criticism from the American Association of University Professors.) But it’s his job, Mr. Alexander said, to let people know that “all the tools have to be on the table.”
“It will be an option in late June if the Legislature doesn’t reduce these cuts substantially,” he said.
On a national level, Mr. Alexander has also raised some eyebrows with his policy positions: He has argued in favor of President Obama’s proposed college-rating system, for example, even as many higher-education lobbyists and leaders have expressed outright objections. And he has made the case against an increase in the maximum Pell Grant award.
“That only helps the private colleges and for-profits,” he said. “They didn’t take a budget reduction; they’re just getting a $200 increase on the Pell Grant.”
Instead, Mr. Alexander is promoting his own plan to give federal money to states if they maintain their current levels of spending on higher education.
‘Be Annoying’
While some of those proposals are unpopular in Washington, faculty members in the university system are giving Mr. Alexander high marks for leadership.
Before Mr. Alexander began his tenure, in 2013, the system had a “caretaker” administration, Mr. Cope said, and a Board of Supervisors, chosen by the governor, that was content to do very little to challenge the deep budget cuts for higher education.
“King Alexander is at least managing to speak out,” Mr. Cope said.
Mr. Alford, the political analyst, attributes Mr. Alexander’s success to more than just rhetoric, however. His stances have helped push a grass-roots movement to support higher education, and the system has provided talking points for other organizations that support the system, such as alumni groups.
Just as important, the system is represented in the Louisiana State Capitol by a well-connected lobbyist who was Governor Jindal’s chief of staff, Mr. Alford said.
“From the outside looking in and from what you hear in the hallways, it seems to be a very sophisticated operation,” Mr. Alford said.
Mr. Alexander said the lobbyist is paid with money from a coalition of supporting groups and the university foundations.
The chancellor has also encouraged students to follow his example in making their voices heard. “I told them to be annoying,” he said. Students have held two rallies, he said, with some faculty members joining in, as well.
Getting the message to lawmakers before the session ends, on June 11, is paramount, Mr. Alexander said, so they understand the dire consequences of budget cuts that will affect fall courses just a few weeks after the legislative session concludes. Nearly half of the LSU system’s courses could be canceled, he said: “We don’t want to be told on June 12: Why didn’t you tell us this was going to happen? Because we might have voted differently.”
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.
Correction (6/25/2015, 6:41 p.m.): This article originally misstated F. King Alexander’s job titles at Louisiana State University. He is president of the LSU system and chancellor of its Baton Rouge campus, not the other way around. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.
