Budget cuts that are taking place this semester at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette are making some students question whether or not the University’s R1 status will be lost.
In order to maintain the title, $50 million has to be put towards research endeavors and at least 70 doctoral degrees must be awarded per year. Currently, the University is awarding around 80 doctoral degrees yearly and it is unlikely that that number will decrease.
The vice president for Administration and Finance, Dr. Edwin Litolff, said, “Back in 2010, there was $69 million in research and it’s pretty much gone up… a little bit here… and then all of a sudden, it’s really grown over these last couple years. It was last reported at $225 million in research.” He continued, “So I can’t see that number dropping that much. No way, no way.”
To lose the R1 status, over $175 million would have to be deducted from the research fund, which according to Litolff, is extremely unlikely.
According to carnegiefoundation. org, this system of ranking research institutes has evolved from the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education (CCIHE), which began in 1970.
The system allows for higher education schools to be grouped together based on factors like size, award levels and programs.
The American Council of Education (ACE) later came together with the CCIHE to expand the classification system and make the characteristics broader.
Any university that offers Pell Grants to students must submit their data into the Integrated Post Secondary Data System (IPEDS) each year. By going to nces.ed.gov, anybody can access the IPEDS data that’s been entered.
ACE uses this public empirical information about the universities and colleges to calculate which institutions to group together and how.
Even with the R1 status being relatively stable, some students are worried about how the budget cuts will affect them.
Sophia Perez, a sophomore biology major, said, “It’s upsetting that they would prioritize our stuff that doesn’t really matter in the school… we’re an R1 school so you’d hope that they want to help us more.” In contrast, Mina Thalanh, a sophomore sociology student, said, “I’m stable, my financial aid and TOPS cover my stuff so I’m not worried.”
Litolff said, “What I think we’re going to see is an 18-24 month time period to turn around the finances of the University, so I look at this as just a short time period where we tighten our belt… We have enrollment growth this year, right? So the enrollment growth will help us and I think in 18-24 months we’ll be starting to look back at what degree programs do we add? What programs do we have for growth?”
He continued, “So we lost 1700 students from here to here, and that’s about $19 million a year. Now we’ve been up the last two years, we went up again this year, so the trend is going up and tuition went up this year. So with that, we’re in a positive direction. What happened is, at the same time, we added over 500 employees, which added $40 million to the payroll. So you’re up $40 million in payroll and you’re down $19 million annually in tuition and fees.”
Litolff suggested letting professors and staff members leave on their own, whether it be for retirement, relocation or other reasons, and instead of replacing them with new staff, allowing already existing staff to take on their duties.
He commented, “Everybody has their peaks and valleys… and I think what we’ve got to do is figure out, okay, how do we match the demands to the employees and resources as people retire, as people leave?”
Budget cuts could offer changes to various aspects of campus life, however UL Lafayette’s R1 research status will likely not be affected.