Colleges, universities need more funding
Published 7:00 pm Thursday, December 19, 2019
Louisiana’s colleges and universities earlier this year got additional funding for the first time in a decade. Gov. John Bel Edwards has also promised them higher education will get more money in his proposed budget for the next fiscal year.
State Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, blocked an optimistic revenue forecast that could jeopardize that new money. However, he said Edwards could do what he did last year and still include those additional funds in his budget proposal. Whether Republicans who control both houses of the Legislature will agree to add the new money remains to be seen.
The Advocate noted that Louisiana led the nation during the past decade in budget cuts to higher education. That policy led to institutions limiting course offerings, faculty members leaving and buildings falling into disrepair.
Students and parents had to cover much of the drop in state support that led to the doubling of tuition at four-year schools — to the tune of about $4,800 more — between 2008 and 2018. The state started the decade providing 70 percent of the support received by colleges and universities, but that dropped to 30 percent eight years later.
Edwards and members of the Legislature managed to stabilize state budgets in 2018 when lawmakers approved a seven-year, 0.45 percent increase in the state’s 4 percent state sales tax. That resulted in budget surpluses that made it possible to give higher education an additional $47 million this fiscal.
Republicans increased their numbers in both the House and Senate during statewide elections in October and November, and how they feel about keeping that sales tax remains to be seen. Without those revenues, higher education may not get those additional increases Edwards has promised.
Edwards said he would revisit the sales tax issue, but would refuse to tinker with the tax if it would result in more budget deficits. The surpluses have also made it possible to do long-delayed maintenance on higher education buildings, replenish the state’s rainy day fund, do some one-time construction projects and finance additional coastal restoration work.
Higher education officials have come up with a master plan that calls for 60 percent of working age adults to have some training beyond high school by 2030. Achieving that goal is going to take additional financing, and that is the major unknown with so many new legislators taking office Jan. 13.
We urge the new lawmakers to make it easier financially and otherwise for Louisiana’s young people to get a post-secondary education that equips them well for the jobs that will secure their futures.
