A diploma from LSU may soon be worth less than the picture frame that holds it.
OK, I’m exaggerating. But it definitely won’t be worth the roughly six-figure tuition, fees and living expenses out-of-state and international students pay to come here for four years, as long as the University receives a budget cut for every acorn buried by a squirrel on campus.
Interim System President and Chancellor William “Bill” Jenkins warned the public that the University is at “the tipping point” of dropping from a tier one to a tier two ranking in U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings, according to The Advocate.
Students have two choices: Do something about it, or run for their educational well-being.
LSU ranked 134th out of 281 national universities in the 2013 report, which includes public and private accredited universities with more than 200 students, plus seven for-profit universities.
Because tier one universities include 75 percent of rated institutions, LSU fit snugly inside the safety of the prestigious ranking it earned for the first time four years ago.
However, because about one-fifth of the ranking comes from peer-university assessments, Jenkins worries the state’s dire financial situation will drag its flagship university’s esteemed ranking down with it.
“We’re already not very high in the rankings, but we may take a turn for the worse either this year or next year,” Jenkins said.
LSU tied for 134th with Colorado State University and the University of Arkansas, as well as the private Depaul University and Hofstra University.
Here’s a fun fact — Harvard University, which earned the top spot in this year’s rankings, has an endowment $30 billion larger than all five universities combined.
LSU has an endowment of about $430 million.
Granted, Harvard’s endowment nearly doubles Princeton University, which tied it for the No. 1 spot on the rankings report.
Still, it’s no secret that money matters.
LSU has received less money from the state for four straight years and received midyear budget cuts for five years now, including this year.
Coincidentally, the University has not awarded faculty pay-raises for almost five years either.
And it’s starting to show — both in the University’s student-to-faculty ratio and the amount of grant money awarded to LSU faculty.
“We’ve lost some pre-eminent researchers, and the number and the value of our grants have gone down,” Jenkins said.
How does all of this tie into the dropping ranking again?
U.S. News identifies faculty resources as one of its seven main rankings criteria, meaning when the faculty members start to leave, the rankings start dropping. And when the ranking drops, we all fall down.
Like it or not, those rankings matter to prospective students. And if it takes more than three clicks to find LSU’s ranking on 50-result Web pages, the University might strike out with future students, and therefore, future dollars.
It can’t afford any more strikeouts.
