For the first time since 2008, the Louisiana legislative session ended without budget cuts to Louisiana’s public colleges. The budget for higher education will increase $109 million for fiscal year 2015, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office.
Over the past five years, Louisiana’s higher education budget has been cut by about 35 percent, according to an Illinois State University Grapevine study. The study reports Louisiana has had the most higher education budget cuts of all 50 states, about 10 percent more than the second highest state, Arizona.
According to the Legislative Fiscal Office, about $88 million of the increase is money the public colleges expect to receive from raised tuition. Although that will partially be covered by the state’s funds for the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS, most of the $88 million will come from students’ fee bills.
University of Louisiana System President Sandra Woodley called the 2014 legislative session the “most successful legislative session our universities have seen in many years.”
“If we are able to sustain and build on this effort in future years, we will look back to this day as the starting point of a revitalization of Louisiana in which there is alignment between our work in higher education and our collective ambition to achieve a nationally competitive economy,” Woodley said in a news release.