re: LSU Folks - how did the $$$$$ situation at the University get so dire?

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Is it a school issue or a state issue? Or both?

Sorry, I just randomly see these articles and I'm curious as to who everyone holds responsible and how optimistic folks are that the issues can be fixed anytime soon.

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My opinion, and I'm not directly affiliated with LSU, is it's more a state issue filtering down. Someone joked it's a Democrat thing... it sorta is. Not modern Dems, so much as historical Dems. It's the long term fallout from the 70's budgets of Edwin Edwards, and before.

Louisiana tried to rely on the oil market, on Exxon etc, and tied everything to that one horse. And people growing up saw better income at a plant than anywhere else, still do. So you have a population base not focused on degrees or diversification of skills, you have a large sub-base used to the charity handouts of the surplus. And now that isn't working, and we have no real money to go anywhere and can't attract new businesses in.

LSU Medicine used to staff the Charity hospital system, for example. Was a perfect balance, cheap healthcare and lots of training for the interns and residents. That's gone because it was hemorrhaging money.

LSU is doing the best it can, but it's in a bad locale, and absolutely needs to make money in sports- because otherwise the money is scarce.

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Is it a school issue or a state issue? Or both?

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Combination of both. To a certain degree the State is LSU and vice versa. It's part of the reason why the smaller schools in La. despise LSU so much. There has been doom and gloom around LSU's academic budget for as long as I can remember.

Higher Ed in La. is a bloated, inefficient mess due in part to so many schools existing. Jindal didn't help and Bel Edwards doesn't appear to be helping either because no politician in La. will expend the political capital required to fix the issue.

That's a high-level overview of the problem.