Amid Funding Cuts, Will LSU Have to Declare 'Bankruptcy'?

[Cheesesteak]

Amid Funding Cuts, Will LSU Have to Declare 'Bankruptcy'?

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/amid-funding-cuts-will-lsu-have-declare-bankruptcy-n347951

[Digetydog]

Amid Funding Cuts, Will LSU Have to Declare 'Bankruptcy'?

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/amid-funding-cuts-will-lsu-have-declare-bankruptcy-n347951

If they do go through the process, it will be very interesting to see how it impacts their sports programs.
1) Will they really be able to fire tenured faculty while paying Les Miles $4M+ per year;
2) Will they really be able to shut down the [academic] program while spending millions per year for football and basketball.

If they fired Miles and paid the new coaching staff 1/2 of what the current staff gets, they could save an enormous amount of money and still keep [X#] tenured professors. Plus, they would still be able to field a competitive team.

Bottom Line: It is a virtual certainty that the tenured faculty, who have a contractual right to their job, are going to fight any firings in court.

[JoeKidd]

Tenuring professors is an archaic and socialistic practice that should be stopped at all universities.

[Planter's Punch]

They are facing a drop of up to 82% of their state funding, and people here are trying to scapegoat tenured professors. Professor pay is relatively flat over the years, and many academic departments get most of their classes taught by cheap adjuncts who they themselves live near the poverty line. Who cares about LSU football, Louisiana is trying to destroy its entire higher education and make it out of reach from most of its poor citizens.

[Stallion]

Thank you

Create crisis-defund government and then complain about how poor government services are. Repeat. See Wisconsin, Louisiana and Kansas

[RGV Pony]

well, their version of the Mustang Club-the Tiger Athletic Foundation-has about $60 million a year in revenue, not to mention SEC TV money. Athletics isnt the problem there

https://www.lsutaf.org/images/CMS/Page/ ... %20AFS.pdf

[ponyte]

LA is getting hammered by the lower price of oil. LA loses tens of millions of dollars a day with the price this low. And thus the budget short fall.

It will not be just higher eduction that gets squeezed but almost every thing the state funds.

LA has many issues with its higher education infrastructure and this may force LA to finally deal with some of those issues.

One thing LA did was divest itself from its state wide cradle to grave healthcare system (Yes, LA was the only state in the Union to have a true cradle to grave healthcare system for all citizens). This was costing the state many millions of dollars but certainly not enough in savings to off set the current budget shortfall. The result though may have dire consequences as now one of the state's two medical schools is in deep financial trouble. This is a state with a huge shortage of all doctors and the loss of the medical school will only exacerbate that issue.

If the price of oil increases, then state tax receipts will increase and the higher eduction issue may not be as sever. Otherwise, cuts will occur. Except to LSU football which is king in the state.

[Mexmustang]

It is not a question of how much professors incomes are or even how fast they have grown or not, but how much is truly "earned". When they cut back on their class hours and delegate their classrooms to non-tenured professors and associates--those are the issues that need investigation.

Most professionals would love the life of a tenured professor, no one can challenge their job performance, full benefits including retirement, all the vacation time of a college student, plus three and a half day weekends--free from noon on Thursdays to Monday morning.

Their outside work, especially consulting doesn't accrue to the students, the parents or the university but strictly the pockets of the professors that are paid by these very same constituencies.

I am not going to argue that coaches salaries haven't gotten out of perspective, but I doubt very much that any of these professors, spend as much time "at work" as Les Miles. Now lets bring in the fact that his successes does bring in revenue and the fact he can be fired at almost anytime for lack of performance.

Many university boards are now questioning the abuses of the tenure system, one of the more active is UT Austin under their new president.

As far as Louisiana's public university system is concerned, I wonder if these public administrators have even considered that the decline in enrollment might just be do to competition? Better options? Sort of like the conversation I overheard between the local post office supervisor and an unhappy customer when the postal worker claimed that FEDEX and UPS was stealing all their business and should be eliminated so that the US postal system could be profitable.

[well travelled pony]

I work in the film production business. Louisiana has had a very generous film incentives program in place for a number of years now. They pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize Hollywood productions, and multitude of studies have shown that Louisiana is losing lots of money. Same thing for the gas and oil industry, but they lose a far lass percentage on that biz.

Go Ponies!

[footballdad]

Living within your means.....what a concept. Tenured professors, boo hoo.

[Digetydog]

well, their version of the Mustang Club-the Tiger Athletic Foundation-has about $60 million a year in revenue, not to mention SEC TV money. Athletics isnt the problem there

https://www.lsutaf.org/images/CMS/Page/ ... %20AFS.pdf

I am not suggesting it is. I just think LSU will have an interesting fight on their hands once things get into the courts.

[stc9]

well, their version of the Mustang Club-the Tiger Athletic Foundation-has about $60 million a year in revenue, not to mention SEC TV money. Athletics isnt the problem there

https://www.lsutaf.org/images/CMS/Page/ ... %20AFS.pdf

I am not suggesting it is. I just think LSU will have an interesting fight on their hands once things get into the courts.

It will be an interesting fight. I am more curious how much of the coaches salaries comes from the Tiger Athletic Foundation. If the vast majority comes from that instead of the University the entire argument changes. The football program will skate through this unscathed.