The state is apparently facing massive budget issues, especially surrounding those dollars devoted to higher education and the governor just released statements to the effect that many state run schools could be forced to close as early as April and that this could effect among others the LSU football team for 2016.
Story HERE
"If you are a student attending one of these universities, it means that you will receive a grade of incomplete, many students will not be able to graduate, and student-athletes across the state at those schools will be ineligible to play next semester," Edwards said, according to The Times-Picayune. "That means you can say farewell to college football next fall."
The Democratic governor is pushing for tax increases to help make up a $940 million budget deficit by the end of June. He said Louisiana could be forced to cut vital health services as well.
"These are not scare tactics. This is reality," Edwards said. "An unstable state budget will not only hurt children and working families in our state, it will devastate communities, businesses and local government as well."
Seems to me when you say you arent using scare tactics, that is exactly what you are doing but it could be interesting if they are unable to come to some compromise and this were to happen. It would make the Les Miles possibly getting fired debacle look like peanuts.
Comments
That'd be hysterical. Go from "we can raise $15mil to fire Les!" to "sooo... we can't really afford to keep our student-athletes on scholarship...."
Not a great look, LSU.
LSU has some of the WORST facilities outside of the athletic ones I've ever seen.
Tiger habitat is nice, though.
I initially agreed that it was a scare tactic, but it seems more like a mixture of propaganda and convenient leverage to me. Can you imagine the state saying their flagship university system has to be shut down because of the government's fiscal disaster? The governor is indeed waving the statement in front of him, "look at this thing you love - it will go away!" as is expedient for him to do, though I have a hard time really believing that they'll have to send all those college students home. That would be a real torches and pitchforks kind of moment for the state.
I was thinking the same thing. When I read "That means you can say farewell to college football next fall," I hear him trying to scare people into making something happen because the thought of no LSU football is like telling folks in New Orleans that Mardi Gras will be ended forever and you can no longer drink in the streets. Riots will occur if LSU football is cancelled.
Athletics are not even secondary if the govt did something like this. I don't know that many schools could really survive something like this. If LSU or LA Tech etc. were trying to get research grants, would you provide that $$$ if they had to shut the doors? If I were a major industry or the government, I sure as hell wouldn't want to put money into a LA school until this is resolved. There are so many things wrong with this type of bluster. Plus, what would this mean for accreditation? Or the seniors who thought they were heading to law school,, grad school or med school next year? Honestly, football should be the least of their worries.
It is ironic though, LSU boosters were going to be able to come up with the money to fire Miles and hire Fisher and now this.
It's just a political bluff. They are threatening the one thing most Louisianans (?) really unite over so there will be pressure on local and state lawmakers.
It's like saying a bar may get rid of all their beer if they don't sell enough this weekend. Knee jerk reactions and nothing substantial.
Absolutely a political bluff, they can't take the shot to the economy that losing LSU football would bring.
Who's the LSU DB coach? We have a job opening.
But Grimes is still banned, right?
Can he coach DB's?
/s
Why do I feel like I've heard this before from Lousisiana in the not so distant past?? I could be totally wrong though.
This was a problem last year as well, It was fixed well before the school would have gotten shut down.
With the amount of revenue that the football program generates, you would think that there could be some other options... Sounds like a political "ploy" on the surface.
It doesnt really matter how well football or LSU's athletic budget is doing, they cant cover a 1Bil shortfall.
And the line is basically that once schools cant pay to keep operating, then classes get cancelled, once that happens students get assigned an "Incomplete" Grade, and the NCAA doesnt allow athletes with Incomplete to compete.
ANd even if LSU found a solution it doesnt help ULL, ULM, or LaTech.
Also, hang on to your butts, cause next year, Louisiana will have a 2 billion dollar deficit. DOUBLE THE CANCELLED FOOTBALL.
Its a bluff but I don't blame him for trying. LSU football is about the only thing many of the state's citizens care about.
There would be a smoking crater where Baton Rouge once was if this happened.
There is a much, MUCH bigger discussion needed here, and one that I have been tossing back and forth in the back of my mind ever since I heard this story earlier today.
The University Spending system is a bubble that is ripe for bursting, and bursting soon. This arms race cannot continue with the fiscal issues this country is currently seeing, especially on the academic side. Costs are skyrocketing, student debt is through the roof, and yet these lavish facilities are popping up all over the place. It just can't continue for much longer without the system collapsing on itself. Well, looks like the cracks are starting to show.
So, I work in higher education. Looking at the research, yes, these costs aren't helping, but quite often they are funded heavily by alums and it doesn't add tremendous train on the budget. The reason debt is skyrocketing is actually financial aid. It's a very simple principle, if there is unlimited money for any commodity, the price will go up. Tuition needs to become more fixed and financial aid needs to stop giving out so much damn money.
This is true. As difficult as it is to believe, a good bit of the problem has been created by providing TOO MUCH money to universities through student loans.
Student loans are breaking budgets of students and parents, and they're raising the cost of education, not lowering it.
If you want to raise the cost of something, make the funding unlimited, and make it really easy to get.
As one who is currently on VT staff and has been for 30+ years, the amount of $ spent on staff that have nothing to do with educating students- I'm talking upper level VP's, 'Chiefs of Staff' for those VP's and then their supporting staff- is staggering. We're talking +$300k for a Facilities VP salary alone. The growth in this spending I've seen over my career has been insane. Many of us want to approach these people and ask ala 'The Bobs': "what would you say you DO here"
Relatively speaking, the non-state $ spent on athletic facilities (remember, in Virginia state funds cannot be used for athletic facilities) is fiscally responsible.
+1 for the Office Space reference. Love that movie. Lived a good portion of that during my time in the first internet boom. As an aside, I really hated the electric shock from opening doors. It started making me feel like I was in some lab experiment.
Actually, in LSU's case the opposite has been leading to this. It's not the fact that tuition costs are too high at LSU, it's the fact that the government has so heavily subsidized the cost of admission through the Tops program that it has essentially been draining Louisiana's budget. Through Tops, any student who makes a 3.00 Gpa in high school will only have to pay about $2,500 a semester in tuition, getting between roughly $4000-$6,000 of their tuition paid for by the program. At LSU roughly 60% of student qualify for Tops.
While there are multiple spending problems in Louisiana, This has been one of the biggest contributing factor with regards to what is happening.
Also, Louisiana just cut Tops and the financial effect of that has had a huge impact on the economy and the situation that's happening right now.
This amounts to little more than extortion. Support a tax increase, or I'll take away your football.
Yes but ones that probably needed to go through, looking back Jindal seemed to work under the assumption Oil would never come back down, and didnt really save any of the states money from it, unlike many other states and nations.
And LSU has a really high number of smaller and thus more expensive state universities for a state its size which all have just enough political clout to stay open. LSU, ULL, ULM, La. Tech, Grambling, Southern, McNeeses State, Nicolls State.
I'm not arguing against the tax increase per se. Just the methods employed to force the issue. That state is the omnishambles.
State government in Louisiana has a long and storied history of clusterfuckery.
Louisiana doesn't have a monopoly on that by any means.
Can confirm.
I don't buy it. I would be absolutely shocked if LSU isn't playing football next year.
I've learned that whenever money gets tight in MY life, my first thought is to think about SPENDING less.
Just me...
"Not going to VT games" is never a consideration. So say we all?
Governor of Louisiana: "We are going to cut healthcare coverage to make up for the budget shortfall"
Public: "Meh"
Governor of Louisiana: "We might need to cancel LSU football to make up for the budget shortfall."
Public: "Nooooooo! We need financial solutions now!!!"
A lot of y'all don't seem to be understanding what's happening here. No one is threatening to shut down football, just using it as a specific example of one of the consequences of what will happen if the budget isn't fixed (since it's the one of the few things people in Louisiana all care about). The issue is that if all of the schools shut down, students will receive incompletes, making them academically ineligible under NCAA rules.
LSU Football isn't facing any budget issues (they're actually operating in the black). This has nothing to do with football revenue.
I think that's why everyone seems largely in agreement that this is a political ploy. Forget about the tens of thousands of students who can't go to school, or the economic ripple effect of that, BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE WE'RE GOING TO LOSE FOOTBALL BECAUSE OF IT????
The fact that the university system in Louisiana could actually shut down over this is an absolute nightmare.
Call it a political ploy or call it referencing a consequence that the masses care about.
LSU football could be cancelled in 2016 in the same way I could be dating Eva Longoria in 2016.
LSU has a tattoo of the name "Eva" on their hand too?
Do their athlete's scholarships come from state funding? I was under the impression that it came from donors just like Virginia Tech's do.
LSU's got plenty of booster funding; that's not the issue. A team can't play if the school isn't open. That's the bigger problem here.
Thanks for clarifying. I didn't realize that no football was going to be an after affect and not the prime initiative.
Yeah, the NCAA bars students that have an Incompletes as grades, which is what they would get of classes were canned by the school shutting down.
Leonard, come play for the Hokies
HELL. NO. Way too much $$$
Should also note that even if LSU somehow finds a solution just to save themselves, there is still ULM, ULL, and La Tech int he state facing the same challenges.
Tip of the burg in higher education?
Ehhhhh, Louisiana isn't exactly a shining model of an education system (no offense to anyone who graduated from one of those universities). It's tough to argue one way or the other as it gets really political and I don't think it's the best discussion to have on this forum.
Time to start recruiting in Loiusiana! We might not have a stadium that seats 100,000 but we so have Universities that are open!
This is related, "Evangel WR decommits from Louisiana Tech citing 'recent political events'".
"Political events for me means the future is uncertain for state-funded universities," he wrote. "I want to further my education and while I'm doing that, I hope to play football. Being blessed with a scholarship means the world to me, because I get to do both and it takes some of the strain off my family. I am grateful to God, my Evangel coaches and teammates and to Louisiana Tech for taking a chance on me and giving me an offer."
To those indicating that this is simply a scare tactic, you're partially correct. It's likely an effort to demonstrate just how serious budget shortfalls can be in a state and a precursor to significant cuts in state-run services if an agreement isn't met. I agree that there's no chance LSU football gets cancelled, but it IS a fairly common tactic to paint the worst type of picture during a budget crisis in order to make whatever DOES happen seem less significant.
To my knowledge, no one has ever threatened the ability for state universities to remain in operation in Virginia, but I do remember the budget shortfalls that happened as a result of the Dot Com bubble burst in the early 2000's when I was in school. Governor (now Senator) Warner made cuts everywhere, but made sure to shut down places where budget cuts would be immediately noticed: e.g. DMVs. The experience went from bad to nightmarish, and this was used as leverage to reach a compromise of higher taxes and lower costs.
tl;dr; - When need to slash budgets and want to raise revenue, you make sure to announce cuts in things that people get riled up about.
http://theadvocate.com/news/15034372-128/lsu-president-says-cutting-summ...
This is going to be something to pay attention to.
I had a random thought about this because I heard about this story in Feb. but there was never a follow up on it. I thought, "hey, what ever happened to LSU football getting shut down? I didn't hear about any solution to that problem."
So for those of us who remember these things...the state of Louisiana did get a big tax increase that went into effect in April. I guess LSU football was saved and it was a huge bluff just like most people here said.
Will need to wait and see (as far as taxes go). Higher rates don't necessarily translate into higher revenue.
It would never of happened. The whole state could have imploded and been annexed by Cuba while espn footed the bill for the program.
I keep coming to this thread for answers. I'm not asking WHETHER LSU will be banned for 2016 but rather WHEN LSU will be banned for some stupid heck reason or another. Either way, I'm good!