LA brain drain fault of higher education

It’s called singing for your supper, but it shouldn’t be a flight from reality for Louisiana higher education.

Data reveal not only that the number of recipients of Taylor Opportunity Program for Students senior college awards has declined significantly in the last few years but also those eligible for the highest award level, Honors, disproportionately are turning down the free taxpayer-aided gift. Honors eligibility requires a 3.5 grade point average for a set of required courses and an ACT standardized test score of 27, making them eligible for the award of tuition mostly paid plus $800. The regular award requires a 2.5 GPA and 20 on the ACT for all but the $800 lagniappe.

The blame for this, according to one Board of Regents official, is unenlightened legislators and their greedy taxpaying constituents, with many of the student cohort opting for out-of-state schools offering better financial aid packages because of the inability for TOPS to cover the full cost of attendance. Starting in academic year 2016-17, the Legislature stopped indexing TOPS but would have to approve annually increases in the award to match tuition increases (fees aren’t included, and these have risen as well), which it has done infrequently since.

Of course, Louisiana higher education would want to grift more from taxpayers to boost enrollments by tapping more into a program that rewards at best mediocrity. Not only is the ACT score of 20 barely above the national average, the score of 27 for the Honors award would equate to the most minimal qualification under regular admittance to attend a number of state schools outside of Louisiana. However, citizens aren’t going to buy such transparently bogus reasoning that they aren’t throwing enough money at the college-bound.

Only about a dozen states have programs to subsidize senior institution attendance, and almost none is as generous as Louisiana’s where these programs typically have family income criteria, lower awards, and/or higher standards to qualify. And where financial aid is offered to out-of-state students like Louisianans – who face far higher tuition costs that have to be made up to match what TOPS offers – that doesn’t come from those states’ taxpayers but from endowments at particular institutions and systems.

The real problem is Louisiana higher education institutions and systems have done a poor job in attracting academic donations and the public doesn’t show much enthusiasm for that. In the latest rankings of endowments, Louisiana State University ranks a dismal 135^th out of American and Canadian institutions/systems in total amount, just over $1 billion, and others of the state’s schools far below that. And LSU doesn’t even make the top 400 in per student amount.

Louisiana schools lag so badly because too much emphasis in placed on donating for athletics and other pursuits rather than academics. Those figures aren’t released publicly, but anecdotal evidence suggests a much heavier imbalance to athletics than academics in Louisiana compared to the typical state.

Finally, while TOPS acceptances are down about 14 percent over the past few years, the number of students eligible for it has dropped 17 percent. It’s not likely a consequence of less-capable students now than then, but simply the toll of a depopulating state that lost over 100,000 residents during Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards’ two terms in office, responding to inferior policy-making compared to other states.

If you want to apportion blame for fewer TOPS students, don’t shove it onto taxpayers. Put it on the schools, prospective and actual donors to academic causes, and policy-makers whose near-doubling of state spending from 2015-23 (it did decrease this year under Republican current Gov. Jeff Landry) that crimped the economy which discouraged people from staying and possibly from giving. Throwing more money at TOPS isn’t the answer, while better administration inside the Louisiana academy and better policy-making outside of it is.