BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
In a 16 to 0 vote, the Southern Board of Supervisors approved a retrenchment and reorganization plan that will save Southern University $8.6 million, but it's comes at a hefty cost to 87 employees as well as the students.
"In the grand scheme of things, it helped the whole budget crisis that Southern is going through right now, but from a student perspective, that's pretty bad," said Southern student Kathryn Curtis.
"When you start gutting the staff members, you are reducing the student services. That's what you're doing. You're diminishing the quality of education we embark on the students on one hand. On the other hand, you are decreasing the student services," said Sudhir Trivedi, Southern Faculty Senate President.
35 faculty members will be cut and 52 staff members from various departments will lose their jobs over the next six months. That after the university has struggled with funding problems and declared an exigency, or financial emergency, in October.
"We have to rely on revenue generating opportunities. We can't just keep on relying on state appropriations to expire," said Dr. James Llorens, Southern Chancellor.
That's because the projected state funding is dropping every year. Currently, the state gives Southern $36 million. By the 2015-2016 year, it will be just over $30 million.
To balance the sheets, students will have to shell out more for tuition. Projected revenues from tuition will increase from $23 million in the current school year to just under $40 million in four years.
"It's rough as it is. Most students, even with financial aid, don't have enough money to pay for school. It's rough but there's nothing we can do about it," said Southern student Marshaun Robertson.
"People come here because it's cheaper to finance in order to get their education, and so it's going to be really hard on a lot of people I know," said Curtis.
Out-of-state and student fees are expected to increase and the student-to-teacher ratio will go up.
"I think it's going to be horrible. Southern is known to be a really small school," said Curtis.
All this comes atop the additional budget cuts to higher education Governor Bobby Jindal announced Friday, which Dr. Llorens said would only expedite the layoffs.
The 35 faculty will be cut by the end of the spring semester. The other 52 staff member layoffs will be spread out over the next 6 months.
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