University administrators announced Wednesday as students left for fall break how the University will absorb a $5.1 million midyear cut.
The cut is LSU’s share of reductions the Jindal administration has mandated to fill a $108 million state budget deficit.
The School of Veterinary Medicine will lose money, the source of funds for graduate assistant tuition exemptions will be changed, and the Academic Center for Student Athletes will be moved from the University to the Athletic Department, administrators said.
The remaining deficit will be met using tuition money from an increased freshman class.
“It is clear that we’re going to have to expedite some serious cuts that will impact students and programs to address this budget crisis,” said Chancellor Michael Martin in a news release.
Instead of distributing the cuts evenly throughout the LSU System, University administrators say research-only institutions at the LSU AgCenter and Pennington Biomedical Research Center were spared cuts, increasing the budget burden on teaching institutions like LSU.
Administrators were informed of that finagling last Monday, after submitting a plan to cut $2.2 million the previous week.
“I am glad that Pennington and the AgCenter have been helped,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost John Hamilton in the news release. “But I am disappointed that this cut is proportionally much higher for the LSU System – and LSU – than for other higher education institutions in the state. That is unfair to our students.”
The cut to the Vet School specifically targets the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab and the Arbovirus Testing Program. Those programs provide research and diagnoses of animal-related human diseases including West Nile virus, encephalitis and rabies.
The budget damage will be mitigated using the increased tuition from this year’s increased enrollment. The 5,400 new students enrolled this semester make up the second-largest incoming class in school history.
Administrators said the increased tuition funds would have paid for reductions in class sizes, increasing teacher support and adding counseling and tutoring hours to accommodate the increased number of students.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]