The budget for Louisiana's fiscal year starting in July is the biggest investment in higher education the state has seen in 13 years, according to University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson.
The $38 billion spending plan is headed to Governor John Bel Edwards’s desk after clearing the legislature with little of the usual tense arguments that have come to define the yearly budget battle. Henderson said it features a faculty pay raise that breaks down to about two to twwo-and-a-half percent salary bump per faculty member.
“It is another step towards funding us at a level that allows us to recruit and retain faculty without financially burdening students any further and it is a banner year for us,” said Henderson, who cautioned that UL System faculty are still about $8,000 to $10,000 a year behind the southern regional average, and this increase gets them about a quarter of the way there.
Despite the big increase in higher ed investment this year, Henderson said we still have not made up for the steep budget cuts that we enacted under the Jindal Administration.
“We have not made up from where we were, but this is a great step in the right direction and again our gratitude goes to the governor and to the legislators,” said Henderson.
Per-student funding is still below where it was in 2009 and the Henderson said the funding mechanism for higher ed has “flipped” in the last decade. Previously, up to 70 percent of college budgets were state-funded, now 75 percent of college budgets are sustained by student tuition and fees.
