Louisiana yanking taxpayer dollars from select universities for select programs isn’t as deleterious to the concept of higher education at it might seem at first glance.
Republican state Rep. John Wyble has prefiled HB 229. The bill would prohibit allocations of state dollars in any form from going to low-earning outcome programs of study at state schools, as well as those from any local government, beginning in the summer of 2027.
A “low-earning outcome program of study” is defined by guidance from the federal government made at the beginning of this year. With the data it had in hand, it calculated the average earnings (over four years from several years ago) of a school’s graduates in various certificate programs, undergraduate majors, or graduate degrees, and declared those whose average fell below the average high school graduate’s salary for certifications and associate and bachelor degree awardees, or below the average college-degreed or certified salary for graduate degrees, would fit this category. In Louisiana, the former mark is around $32,200 and the latter about $51,000 in that time period.
