A bench sits empty on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, at the University of New Orleans on Alumni Drive. (Photo by Matthew Perschall)
The University of New Orleans was once a bustling campus filled with activity. At its height, in the years before Hurricane Katrina, student enrollment was more than 17,000. However, the last twenty years have seen sharp declines in enrollment.
The first shock was Katrina, which greatly reduced the population of the New Orleans metro area. UNO depended heavily on local students to support its enrollment, so when the local population was reduced, the pool of applicants was greatly reduced.
The second shock was deep cuts in state funding made during the Gov. Bobby Jindal administration from 2008 to 2016. They shifted the primary burden of funding public higher education from the state to the student, resulting in much higher tuition.
The third shock was the COVID pandemic. While the pandemic affected the entire education sector, UNO was more susceptible to its effects because it had never recovered its pre-Katrina numbers.
The fourth shock is on the way. Enrollment officers across the country simply refer to it as “the cliff.” Eighteen years ago, the U.S. was entering an economic recession. It lasted from 2007 to 2009. During this recession, birth rates dropped sharply. That “baby bust” cohort has been making its way through the pipeline, and is now in the process of graduating high school. The bottom line is that there are less students coming out of high school.
Faced with these headwinds, UNO has not been able to attract enough students to support its mission. At the beginning of the fall 2024 semester, the total enrollment was 6,488.
Faced with fewer students paying tuition to support the sprawling infrastructure of a large research university, the school faced a $10 million budget deficit in the last fiscal year. In an attempt to deal with the deficit, the university has implemented a series of staff layoffs, furloughs, and a spending freeze.
In light of the vulnerable position of the university, House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, and Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, have requested that the Board of Regents conduct a study to explore moving UNO from the University of Louisiana System to the LSU System.
From its founding as LSUNO in 1958 until 2011, UNO was actually a member of the LSU System. The move out of the system 14 years ago was motivated by alumni who argued that UNO was overshadowed within the LSU System. The theory was that UNO should be in a system with peer institutions roughly the same size, and it would benefit from greater independence. This benefit never materialized.
Even if the Board of Regents recommends that UNO return to the LSU System, and the legislature decides to act favorably on the request, there are still a series of complex questions that will need to be answered: Will UNO retain its current name, or will it revert to LSUNO? Will UNO maintain some administrative autonomy, or will it simply become a satellite campus of the flagship in Baton Rouge?
Will LSU move some of its marine research assets (environmental engineering, oceanography, coastal science, etc.) to the New Orleans campus to take advantage of closer research proximity to the Gulf of Mexico? How will the campus be marketed as a brand?
Will it change its colors to purple and gold and its mascot to a tiger? Will it eliminate its New Orleans-based sports teams, which lose a lot of money, and simply support the financially-viable teams on the main campus? How will the financial relationship work? Will LSU share resources?
These questions, and many others, need to be answered before the legislature votes on the system move.
Regardless of the outcome of the study to be conducted by the Board of Regents, one thing is certain: There would be catastrophic damage to the economy of New Orleans if UNO became so financially insolvent that it had to close.
With more than 80,000 graduates since 1958, UNO helped to create the modern middle class in New Orleans. The campus specialized in affordable tuition and offered courses at all hours of the day and night, where working-class students could earn a degree while keeping their jobs and supporting their families. It allowed families to move up from working-class to middle-class or higher in a single generation.
Now is the time for all UNO alumni to support their alma mater as this move is discussed. I am an alumnus of UNO. I have my career because of my UNO education. The next generation of students is depending on us. Let’s make sure they have the same opportunities for advancement that we had.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.