Louisiana has funded new construction at its flagship campus in recent years of slashed higher education funding, but the state of deterioration at LSU is significant — and it is repeated across all of Louisiana’s public colleges.The Advocate reports the backlog for deferred maintenance at LSU reaches $510 million and has led to unsafe and unsanitary working conditions. Estimates for the bill statewide could be as high as $2 billion, all for projects that can’t be covered with tuition increases.This type of higher education funding competes with all other construction and infrastructure requests statewide, including legislative pet projects, and funding has been harder to come by for maintenance rather than new construction — but this year, the Board of Regents is requesting funds for deferred maintenance only, and in another year of budget crisis, they can only hope some of it comes through. http://www.educationdive.com/news/lsu-deterioration-highlights-impact-of-years-of-budget-cuts/413583/
LSU leads the way to the bottom: shiny buildings all around while the foundations are crumbling around. Is this a probable or only a possible future for Kentucky universities? What will it take to bring our Governor Ebenezer “Scrooge” Bevin around?
