La. lags South in college grads

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Sep 29, 2009 - Page: 7A

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Louisiana is hampered by the worst college graduation rate in the South and a bleak jobs outlook for the next decade, experts said Monday.

Only 5 percent of students graduate from two-year colleges compared with 16 percent in the region, said Joan Lord, a vice president of education policies for the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta.

Lord said 37 percent of students in Louisiana graduate from four-year colleges and universities compared with a 52 percent average in the region.

“It’s not a good return on the state’s investment,” she said.

Lord and others appeared before a daylong meeting of the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Commission.

The panel, which met for the second time, is supposed to recommend ways to improve higher education in Louisiana.

Recommendations are due by Feb. 12, which is 45 days before the 2010 legislative session begins on March 29.

Lord also said that, despite strides in recent years, Louisiana has a disproportionate number of students attending four-year colleges compared with their two-year counterparts.

In 2008, only 28 percent of students attended community or technical colleges versus 72 percent who attended four-year colleges.

In Texas the breakdown was 54 percent who went to two-year schools and 46 percent enrolled at four-year colleges, according to SREB figures. The split in Arkansas is 41 percent to 59 percent, and in Mississippi it’s 53 percent to 47 percent.

Meanwhile, several members of the panel said they were surprised to hear that, over the next 10 years, the top-growing job by percentage in Louisiana is supposed to be ticket takers, ushers and lobby attendants, who are paid an average of $15,189 per year.

Those jobs are supposed to grow by 95 percent in the next decade.

Other jobs and their current salaries are home health-care aides, $17,154; child-care workers, $15,775; and medical assistants, $22,643.