In responding to critics of his higher education policies, Gov. Bobby Jindal has fired back, saying “our universities are delivering less value than you deserve.” But statistics show those broad criticisms may not apply to the University.
“As of this May our six-year graduation rate was only 38 percent,” Jindal said in an October Facebook post addressed to students. “[That’s] far behind the 53-percent graduation rate for other states in the Southern region.”
These statistics seem bleak, but some administrators say those rates may be deceptive — and don’t apply to LSU’s Baton Rouge campus.
LSU-BR boasted a six-year undergraduate graduation rate of 61 percent in 2009, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
While Robert Kuhn, associate vice chancellor of the Office of Budget and Planning, says that number is 10 points lower than the average state flagship institution, it’s higher than the 53 percent Southern average cited in Jindal’s Facebook post and significantly higher than the 38-percent state average Jindal laments.
Those same NCES numbers show the Baton Rouge campus is far ahead of the rest of the state in graduation rates. The rest range from 8 percent to 46 percent.
In calculating graduating rates, the University determines its “freshman cohort,” the number of first-time, full-time students enrolled. The cohort includes those who enroll in the summer and the fall — it does not count transfer students.
The University then determines what percentage of the cohort graduates in six years.
But external factors might mean graduation rates aren’t a perfect measure of performance.
Kuhn said one of those factors is the state’s relatively new — and underdeveloped — community-college system.
Kuhn argues that students not ready for a university could prepare themselves at community college instead of struggling and eventually dropping out.
Though transfer students don’t factor into graduation rates — something Kuhn says probably hurts the Baton Rouge campus — more community colleges would probably decrease the number of dropouts.
The second factor that impacts graduation rates is how easily students can take necessary classes.
Kuhn said many students don’t necessarily fail out of school. They just don’t take the classes they need to graduate.
The University, for example, has a first-year retention rate of 84 percent — which Kuhn says is close to the national flagship average — despite graduation rates that are much lower. Kuhn argues the problem isn’t simply academic because most dropouts happen after students’ freshman years.
“We need more counseling, more mentoring and more assistance for students,” Kuhn said.
Administrators say budget cuts are preventing efforts to do just that.
In an Oct. 20 news release, University administrators said money raised from a larger incoming freshman class would not be used to provide more “counseling and tutoring hours” to keep up, but rather to meet the recent $5.1 million midyear cut.
Jindal’s second criticism of higher education centers around how much universities spend on classroom instruction.
“Another fact you may find interesting is that only 37.8 percent of higher education funding — or $934 million — goes to the classroom,” Jindal wrote in the Facebook post.
LSU, however, spends a higher percentage on instruction.
According to reports from the Office of Budget and Planning, LSU budgeted 41.8 percent of this year’s $443 million operating budget for instruction.
While that 41.8 percent is only 4 percent more than Jindal’s average figures, Kuhn said classroom instruction isn’t the University’s only goal.
“The official mission at LSU is teaching, research and service,” Kuhn said. “That’s what makes us different from a two-year institution or community college.”
Around 12.3 percent of LSU’s budget goes to research, and 1.4 percent goes to public service. Because LSU’s mission includes all three, Kuhn argues those should be to the teaching percentage.
If they are, 55.4 percent of the University’s budget goes directly to support the mission — 12.4 percent more than Jindal’s figures.
Kuhn says many of the remaining budget “pie slices” do not directly fulfill the University’s mission but provide support to that mission.
“You really can’t separate the two,” Kuhn said. “You can’t just have teachers say, ‘Meet me at The Chimes’ and go from there. You have to have buildings, you have to have infrastructure, you have to have payroll.”
About 5.8 percent of the budget goes to institutional support, or administrative overhead, which includes payroll, human resources and administrators.
University administrators routinely cite this figure as evidence LSU operates efficiently — especially when criticisms of their sometimes six-figure salaries surface.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]