Louisiana budget deficit threatens LSU football in 2016

[shocka khan]

For those of you who are not aware, Bobby Jindal has been performing a similar experiment to the one that Sam Brownback has been performing in Kansas.

Let's hope the results are not as bad, as the current budget deficit in Louisiana has ballooned to $940 million (and projected to be $2 billion dollars next year) dollars and is now threatening LSU's football season (at least according to informed sources).

In the past, I've been told by acquaintances who attended LSU that they would emerge relatively unscathed from the financial woes, but this looks like that information wasn't correct.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/02/louisiana-governor-john-bel-edwards-cut-lsu-football-program-budget-deficit-tax-increases#

This assessment is no less dire, but at the very least, students will feel the pain and in a worst-case scenario, the university may have to shut down:

http://www.andthevalleyshook.com/2016/2/12/10977020/will-lsu-play-football-in-2016-yes-no-maybe-probably

Students from Louisiana get free tuition to LSU....OOPS, not anymore, as of a few days ago, that program is cut off. The students will have their free tuition for this semester and then they'll have to figure it out.

Also, and as noted in the article, LSU has the money to pay professors until April 30th. If they don't get money from somewhere, classes may be cancelled.

[ShockdaWorld]

Ouch

[1972Shocker]

If nothing else you might want to check and make sure your don't own any Louisiana bonds in your muni bond portfolio.

Politically, I am sure the Governor thinks (and probably correctly) that warning about having to shut down LSU football gives him the best public relations leverage to pass the tax increases he wants.

The depression in the oil patch certainly won't be helpful to Louisiana.

[bleed yellow]

Interesting move on their governors part.. Threatening to cancel a football program in the South. The world could be ending before their very eyes and they wouldn't blink. Take away their beloved football team though, that will most certainly get a response.
Imagine if Sam Brownback threatened to ax KSU football right about now. Lol. Being as how the farming communities in western Kansas were mainly responsible for his re-election, at the very least canceling their favorite football team would get them to finally start thinking clearly.

[shock]

Brownback has done a lot of things, and his education policy gets the brunt of public media abuse. But how is Kansas ranked 5th in the nation in education if it's such an awful place to teach?

[shocka khan]

Shock, it took Jindal 8 years to screw up Loiluisiana the way he did. When teachers have to deal with larger classrooms, lower wages and or benefits and generally worse working conditions that may change.

Hopefully Brownback is addressing the pressure points so that Education metrics remain high. Kansas' education system (and its graduates) should be something that appeals to industries looking to expand or relocate in
Kansas.

[rrshock]

So do students only get free tuition to LSU or to all the state universities?

[shocka khan]

So do students only get free tuition to LSU or to all the state universities?

Any university in the state. I talked to a December LSU grad today and he said his friends in Baton Rouge who were from Louisiana were freaking out over the change.

By the way, Tennessee also has a similar program. In the Tennessee program, the student must maintain good grades in high school.

[im4wsu]

Any university in the state. I talked to a December LSU grad today and he said his friends in Baton Rouge who were from Louisiana were freaking out over the change.

By the way, Tennessee also has a similar program. In the Tennessee program, the student must maintain good grades in high school.

Florida had it also. 3.5 in high school got 100% tuition; 3.0 got 50%, if memory serves. That was in 2000, but you also had to maintain it in college.

[shock]

Shock, it took Jindal 8 years to screw up Loiluisiana the way he did. When teachers have to deal with larger classrooms, lower wages and or benefits and generally worse working conditions that may change.

Hopefully Brownback is addressing the pressure points so that Education metrics remain high. Kansas' education system (and its graduates) should be something that appeals to industries looking to expand or relocate in
Kansas.

I have no idea what I think I read in this tread to make me go off on a Brownback tangent. Please ignore :) Sometimes I am not a smart man.

And to your last point, both Koch Industries and Walmart employ a large number of Kansas graduates. Koch says they actually prefer midwest grads to coastal grads. But lets take this to PM if you would like to continue the discussion. The NEA report for 2015 is really interesting, and I wouldn't mind discussing it with someone.

[shocka khan]

I have no idea what I think I read in this tread to make me go off on a Brownback tangent. Please ignore :) Sometimes I am not a smart man.

And to your last point, both Koch Industries and Walmart employ a large number of Kansas graduates. Koch says they actually prefer midwest grads to coastal grads. But lets take this to PM if you would like to continue the discussion. The NEA report for 2015 is really interesting, and I wouldn't mind discussing it with someone.

Thanks for your question, and I understand your point. I would like to see the NEA report if you could PM me a link. Kansas schools and universities educate some pretty smart people and Kansas teachers are great. I know absolutely nothing about how fully funded the educational system is in Kansas, whether the average person believes it to be adequate and any trends as regards the level of student achievement.

This is a cautionary tale about cutting budgets way beyond the fat. Jindal had no plan. My point is I hope Brownback does. I'd hate to see what happened in Louisiana happen in Kansas. I doubt that it will, but based on what little I know about what's going on in Kansas, I believe that it is possible (but I would hesitate to speak any more on the subject as there are several people on this board who are well versed in school funding in Kansas who could provide the information that I do not have).

Not part of this point, but also worthy of discussion is that Louisiana also had a plan, called the Taylor plan, which was a private/public partnership, to elevate LSU to a Tier 1 research institution. This would have brought prestige to the University (as well as badly needed research dollars), but the plan had to be abandoned because of LSU's budget problems a couple of years ago. I think that's unfortunate, as the University of Houston will now attain (if they haven't already) Tier 1 status before LSU. I don't know if there are any Tier 1 schools in Kansas (I would suspect there are, but I'll wait for someone else with more knowledge to speak up). In Texas, there are two Tier 1 schools, Texas and Texas A&M and two working toward Tier 1, the University of Houston and Texas Tech.

[RoyalShock]

As of last March KU wasn't a tear 1 university. There were millions of tears.

[shock]

Brownback hasn't explicitly stated his plan and his vision, at least that I have seen. However, what I have heard from circles in Topeka is that his policy regarding tenure and other issues will make school districts less dependent on the state and federal government in case Obama uses educational funding to ram an unpopular law (like if he were to institute a gun control law) down our throats. Look for funding to increase significantly if a any republican not named Trump is elected.

[shocka khan]

Brownback hasn't explicitly stated his plan and his vision, at least that I have seen. However, what I have heard from circles in Topeka is that his policy regarding tenure and other issues will make school districts less dependent on the state and federal government in case Obama uses educational funding to ram an unpopular law (like if he were to institute a gun control law) down our throats. Look for funding to increase significantly if a any republican not named Trump is elected.

I can't fault that opinion. I don't believe that the federal government's various education initiatives through the years have accomplished anything, except maybe to allow the federal government to politicize our children's education (and to probably make some campaign donor rich), so I definitely believe that education is one facet of government that is best left up to local levels as much as possible (i.e. the state). And another big plus, even if the Commissioner of Education is elective (as it is in some states), its a down-ticket office, so many times the incumbent gets reelected easy. That ensures continuity. Think Fletcher Bell when he was Insurance Commissioner for the state of Kansas. It seems to me like he must have been in that office for 20 years, and by the time he retired, he was greatly respected nationwide primarily due to his tenure and experience. During that time, there were a number of people in his department who held key positions on policy committees of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, so the country benefitted greatly from his leadership.

[WSUwatcher]

From an ESPN article (http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/i...major-concerns) about the potential impact on other sports -- and I say "other sports" because you can bet they'll find a way for LSU football to be unaffected -- here's a bit about a state program that helps LSU provide funding for its baseball players that most other schools can't match:

"...NCAA Division I baseball programs divide 11.7 full scholarships among rosters of players numbering in the 30s. Softball programs divvy up 12 scholarships, and other non-revenue sports contend with similar roster management concerns.

Many of those Louisiana programs are still able to thrive, in large part because of the existence of the TOPS (Taylor Opportunity Program for Students) scholarship initiative. Because it offers free tuition and, in some cases, spending money to in-state students who meet certain academic standards, TOPS creates a clear competitive advantage..."

Not that funding is going to be expanded any time soon, but wouldn't it be nice (from a competitive standpoint, that is) if state universities in Kansas had access to a comparable initiative?