Outgoing LSU president calls for more investment in Southern University

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Outgoing LSU President William Tate, the first Black president of any SEC school, is calling for more investment in Southern University in a new paper analyzing the financial disparities between Louisiana’s two land-grant universities.

The analysis was written by Tate and Keena Arbuthnot, dean of LSU’s Graduate School, who is also Black, and published in the William & Mary Law Review.

“Our financial risk analysis suggests that Southern University’s financial situation warrants monitoring and more importantly, investment,” the authors write.

Tate and Arbuthnot’s article builds on a 2023 letter from former President Joe Biden’s administration to 16 states with both predominantly white and historically Black land-grant universities, informing the states they have not lived up to their federal funding requirements and asking them to find ways to ease the disparity.

The letter to then Gov. John Bel Edwards alleged Louisiana had shortchanged Southern University $1.2 billion over 30 years.

Land grant universities were established in the 19th century by states that received federal property to create schools with a focus on teaching agriculture, science, engineering and military science. The first round of land grant universities, including LSU, were created in 1862.

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LSU’s endowment at the end of the 2020-21 school year was over $700 million, while Southern’s was around $12 million, a difference of more than $20,000 per student. LSU’s total research expenditures in 2020-21 were around $230 million, while Southern’s were just over $7 million.

Between 2018-21, six of the 19 historically Black land-grant universities have received state matching money for federal dollars, as required by federal law. One of these schools was Southern. No predominantly white land-grant university had a problem getting the matching state funds they were owed.

Tate and Arbuthnot’s analysis take into account not just the requirements put to the states under the Morrill Acts, which created the land grant university system, but also the defunding of higher education during former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration. From 2008-18, Louisiana’s per student spending for higher education dropped 38%, with only Arizona having a more extreme funding reduction during that period.

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The analysis commends legislation from U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, who as a state senator sponsored legislation to create an economic development district for Southern University. The authors also praised state Rep. Chris Turner, R-Ruston, who created a dedicated fund for deferred maintenance that is allowing Southern and other Louisiana schools to address their infrastructure needs.

“It is the current generation of leaders’ moment to commit to a robust opportunity compact in support of 1890 institutions,” Tate and Arbuthnot conclude.

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