LSU President F. King Alexander delivered a speech titled “Campaign for a competitive LSU: Capitalizing on value” at a Baton Rouge Press Club meeting Monday, detailing his proposals for improvements to Louisiana’s higher education systems.
Addressing the Press Club and members of the public at the Belle of Baton Rouge Casino Hotel, Alexander said Louisiana has problems to confront in higher education, citing its 49th state ranking in the country for degree attainment. The fourth highest child poverty rate in the U.S. and the state’s status as the incarceration capital of the planet further contribute to higher education’s difficulties, according to Alexander’s prepared remarks.
“We have one of the lowest 2+2 transfer rates in America.” Alexander said. “We have more educational needs than we have services, quite frankly.”
Louisiana university systems should increase collaboration with one another, he said.
“We don’t want to be the crabs in the basket — one crab tries to crawl out, everybody pulls [the crab] back down. That’s what we had for many many years here,” Alexander said. “That’s not going to help any of our institutions if we continue fighting amongst ourselves and fighting for scraps.”
He said he believes Louisiana institutions should cooperate more to help the state as a whole. Universities are already working to accomplish this goal through research, Alexander said.
“We’ve never had more collaboration on research projects,” Alexander said. “Our competition is not McNeese [State University]. Our competition is Ohio State. We need to be able to fight … and win those research [grants] and bring them in.”
Alexander said parents and students face challenges in finding institutions that work best for their needs, as accurate information on universities is hard to find.
He proposes giving parents and prospective students rating systems of universities with more detailed information to help them make an informed decision.
“We know more about the cars we buy — because we have a Bluebook — than the colleges we invest in for a lifetime,” Alexander said. “For our kids, for ourselves, we’re creating a Bluebook to show people value, to decide if you have a public dollar where should you really give it.”
Alexander was highly critical of low quality, for-profit institutions that prey on this lack of information and receive significant public funds for providing little education.
Parents and students should ask whether they are getting their money’s worth from an institution, Alexander said.
“Are you graduating your students? And are your students getting jobs?” Alexander said. “Or are you overcharging, landing them with significant debt, [and] then they only get the same average job they could get by going to a low cost public university?”