CABLWire - CABL

Since the state instituted minimum admission standards, TOPS scholarships, and the community college system, post-secondary education in Louisiana has shown steady improvement in several areas such as the number of degrees awarded, freshmen with higher ACT scores and reductions in the number of students taking remedial courses at four-year institutions.

Other positive efforts in recent years include faculty salary increases and targeted funding to high-quality research and development centers. In addition, in 2008, for the first time ever, LSU – the state’s only Doctoral 1 Research University – entered the top tier ranking in U.S. News & World Report’s annual review. This is a major step forward for all of our state.

However, particularly in the light of recent budget cuts, higher education in Louisiana faces several systemic and structural issues that CABL believes must be addressed to make post-secondary education more efficient and effective and produce the workforce we need for the future.

Graduation rates remain low compared to other states covered by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). Louisiana’s most recent six-year graduation rate is 37% compared to 53% as the average for all SREB states. (The Louisiana Board of Regents also tracks transfers which brings the state’s graduation rate up to 42% but for comparison purposes the SREB graduation rate would also be higher if transfers are taken into account). In Louisiana, one institution has a graduation rate of 66%, one has a rate of 52%, one has a rate of 44%, six are in the 30% range, three are in the 20% range and one has a graduation rate of 6%.

There is an imbalance of enrollment between two- and four-year schools in Louisiana compared to other SREB states. In Louisiana 72% of students in post-secondary education are enrolled in four-year institutions and 28% in two-year schools. The average in other SREB states is 55% in four-year schools and 45% in two year schools. This is one of the reasons Louisiana’s graduation rates are comparatively low compared to other states. In addition, it costs both the state and students more money to enroll in four-year schools and that cost is magnified by the fact that a higher percentage of students in Louisiana are not completing their studies at four-year schools with degrees. With the continued growth of our community colleges this imbalance should change, but Louisiana still has far to go.

Louisiana awards a relatively low number of Associate Degrees compared with the nation. Many of the good jobs of the future will not require a four-year Baccalaureate Degree but will require some level of advanced training or education beyond high school. Nationwide 7.5% of the population age 25 or older has earned Associate Degrees while the number is less than 5% in Louisiana.

Louisiana’s research universities, particularly our flagship institution, are not nationally competitive with their peers in terms of financial resources. LSU is Louisiana’s only Doctoral 1 Research University, but its total funding is significantly below the top institutions in the region. Total funding per student is 49% higher at the University of Texas at Austin, 37% higher at the University of North Carolina, and 27% higher at the University of Georgia. If we aspire to having a top research institution in our state, it must have financial resources on par with top institutions in other states.

Tuition rates are low in Louisiana compared to SREB states which places more of a burden on state government and brings overall support for higher education down. When you look at state funding for higher education before the recent budget cuts, Louisiana fared fairly well – ranking sixth out of 16 SREB states. However, when you consider rates for tuition and fees, Louisiana ranks 14^th. While lower tuition and fees might be a good thing on the one hand, the other reality is that it drops overall funding for higher education in Louisiana significantly – all the way down to number 12 in the SREB. If tuition rates do not rise to regional averages the state burden in support of higher education is effectively greater than in most other states while overall support for the institutions is lower and our universities become less competitive.

Adding to all of this are the major cuts to post-secondary education which have already reduced funding by more than $250 million or approximately 17%. Unfortunately, the cuts aren’t over and the situation is only expected to worsen. More cuts are expected for the 2010-2011 fiscal year followed by the loss of federal stimulus dollars for the 2012 budget. Depending on how those numbers work out, a total budget cut to higher education approaching 40% is not an unlikely scenario and would bring state funding to higher education down to levels not seen in more than a decade.

CABL believes cuts at this level will have a devastating effect on post-secondary education in Louisiana at a time when we should be working to increase education attainment levels in our state and grow our skilled workforce. Nevertheless, it appears that, at the very least, cuts approaching this magnitude will occur. Given that, CABL believes a number of major policy changes must be made in post-secondary education to better position it for the future.

To that end, we offer the following recommendations in order to achieve the goals of high-quality schools, greater economic vitality and growth, establishment of priorities and efficiencies with public dollars, and increasing the number of our citizens who are educated and trained for jobs. CABL believes these recommendations are interconnected and should be enacted with a sense of urgency.

10 Reform Recommendations to Move Higher Education Forward

1. Establish higher admissions standards and/or enrollment caps at all four-year institutions to sharpen focus on mission, improve graduation rates and gain funding efficiencies.

2. Reduce competition and duplication among institutions considering both regional and statewide needs. Consideration should also be given to such options as merging administrations, changing missions, merging campuses and utilizing technology for distance learning to expand educational offerings.

3. Place all two-year schools in the Louisiana Community & Technical College System. Provide funding to support growth in community and technical colleges, accompanied by increased and better defined accountability standards.

4. Reduce the number of existing Ph.D. and graduate programs in regional state colleges and refocus their missions on providing strong undergraduate degrees.

5. Minimize remedial courses and Associate Degrees in regional state colleges and place them in community and technical colleges. If exceptions are made for high-need programs (such as nursing), students should be charged two-year college tuition fees, instead of four-year tuition rates, and all institutions offering those courses should be funded at the two-year rates for those programs.

6. Limit the number of true, high-quality, R&D programs and increase their funding. This should be based on the relatively few institutions that have demonstrated excellence in their programs and success in attracting external research dollars.

7. As budget cuts are enacted, ensure that they are strategic and targeted rather than the across-the-board cuts, that are generally the norm. Priorities should be based on excellence, performance, and job market needs.

8. Authorize the Board of Regents in conjunction with higher education management boards to set rates for tuition and fees without legislative approval.

9. In light of the ongoing cuts to higher education, the TOPS program should be thoroughly reviewed and consideration should be given to increasing academic standards for TOPS, capping the TOPS program, increasing access to TOPS Tech awards and providing additional need-based funding.

10. Implement and fund a flagship agenda and allow LSU to assess a special “flagship fee” to ensure the university maintains national peer status. Louisiana should commit to offering its citizens one preeminent, public, Doctoral 1 university within the state to provide educational opportunity and support a modern diverse economy. Additional funds should come with high expectations for performance competitive with peer research universities.

CABL recognizes that these recommendations represent major shifts in policy that will and should have significant impacts on post-secondary education. Enacting and implementing them will require strong leadership at all levels. CABL believes one impediment to achieving that is the lack of clearly defined authority for the Board of Regents.

Over the years, seemingly conflicting language in state law has made it difficult for the Regents to adopt and implement significant policy and budget changes in an efficient and financially sound manner. Because of this, many of the changes in higher education in Louisiana have been only incrementally enacted over the last two decades while other states have forged ahead and reaped economic benefits not seen to the same degree in our state.

For that reason CABL believes that during the upcoming legislative session lawmakers should adopt whatever changes in law are needed to clearly define the authority and legal responsibilities as they relate to the Board of Regents and the various the system management boards.

Specifically, the Legislature should clearly and specifically give the Board of Regents control over statewide policies such as admission standards, mission and roles of institutions, the master plan, budget, funding formula, and graduate and undergraduate programs.This change would leave the overall structure, including management systems and boards, intact. However, it should make clear who is responsible for higher education improvement in the state and better define lines of accountability.

In closing, CABL believes that the recommendations offered in this report present a path forward for post-secondary education in Louisiana – one that that will lead to improved institutional performance, efficient use of public dollars and a system that can maintain quality in priority areas even in times of severe financial distress.