Higher education cuts loom

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Oct 20, 2009 - Page: 1A

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Current budget projections show the state’s higher education budget being axed by nearly 60 percent — about $635 million — by 2012, according to an LSU “roundtable” discussion Monday on colleges’ funding woes.

“It’s significant … and it affects everybody, everywhere in the state of Louisiana whether we know it or not,” said Bob Keaton, LSU System special budget assistant, jokingly referring to himself as the “doom-and-gloom” guy.

LSU’s roundtable, and a later Southern University faculty meeting Monday, both served as starting points before college leaders begin publicly discussing 2011 budget cuts Wednesday with the Louisiana Board of Regents, which oversees public higher education.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has asked the legislatively-created Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission, which next meets Monday, to recommend how to cut $146 million from colleges for the 2010-2011 fiscal year that begins in July.

The state’s higher education budget was already cut by about 9 percent in June.

State government faces a projected $936 million budget shortfall next year and a $1.93 billion shortfall in 2011-2012 because of growing Medicaid payments and the loss of federal stimulus dollars. Higher education and health care are traditionally the most vulnerable to large cuts because they are not constitutionally protected.

LSU economist and state revenue forecaster Jim Richardson expressed more optimism than Keaton.

“There’ll be a few scars, a few broken legs, but we get through them though,” Richardson said.

However, Richardson noted that Jindal will not raise taxes to offset the shortfall, nor do colleges have autonomous control to raise tuition to balance the effects of budget cuts as colleges did in the 1980s.

Still though, Richardson said the value of higher education should prevent worst-case scenarios.

LSU Chancellor Michael Martin again Monday discussed the possibility of a $1,000-per-year “flagship fee” cost increase for students to offset much of next year’s budget cuts. Such a fee increase — if proposed — would require two-thirds legislative approval next year.

“I will argue … the quality will cause people to pay it,” Martin said of the admittedly unpopular possible cost increase. “It’s a risk.”

LSU’s annual tuition and fees now total nearly $5,300, which LSU officials contend is well below the $7,000 cost of its average flagship peers for in-state costs.