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Angry about the drastic state cuts to public higher education, students in Louisiana now have a group to try and solve the problem. According to a piece by Icess Fernandez in the Shreveport Times:
A group of LSU-Shreveport students — Chris Szabo, John Mazur and Matthew Cash — started circulating a petition that they hope will get the Legislature’s attention. The group, called Project Crisis Call, wants to let the powers that be know that they’re the ones the cuts really hurt.
The group hopes to get 100,000 signatures by the beginning of the session in March. To do that, they’re trying to gain support at the other schools in the area including Bossier Parish Community College and Southern University-Shreveport. They’re trying to reach out to those students so that they can also start circulating petitions on their campuses.
Louisiana’s budget cuts have been particularly troublesome for its public colleges, especially since a new rule essentially rewards colleges who do a good job educating students with the ability to raise tuition.
Students are understandably concerned with these sorts of developments, as it looks like no matter what happens education is going to get more expensive, though not necessarily higher quality.
Project Crisis Call is so far concerned only with state budget cuts affecting Louisiana State University in Shreveport, though eventually the group plans to target students and schools across the state.
It’s interesting to note that Project Crisis Call doesn’t actually propose to change the funding formula for higher education or even increase state funding for Louisiana’s public universities. Project Crisis Call merely calls “upon the Louisiana Legislature to stop the budget cuts to higher education,” however that can happen. This is an interesting statement on the rule that public higher education funding has in state policy. Just stop the cuts. Is that good enough? [Image via]
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Christopher Louie Szabo on November 13, 2010 11:58 AM:
Hello Mr. Luzer. Thanks for posting this article for us. I wanted to point out additionally that although the idea behind the movement is stop the budget cuts, we are working and discussing with other area groups, such as BPCC, Southern, and the SB Higher Education IMperative to not only raise awareness about these budget cuts, but to discuss solutions to it as well. Many of us are aware that we rank lowest in higher education graduation rates in the nation, and we rank, as a state, very low on the education radar. Our concern is that these dismal statistics would not give legitimacy for our leaders to cut education till it is crippled, but rather reform the system. It is our hope not only to present the numbers to demand a stop to the cuts, but also progressive measures to change the system so budget cuts are not the only solution.