re: LSU drops 33 spots in latest U.S. News college rankings

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employers are aware of these rankings.

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I've never once given two shits about whether a fresh grad came from LSU, UGA, Auburn, or McNeese when interviewing them. You're a shitty interviewer if you rely on shite like that.

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Hopefully Tulane gets back to its rightful place in the top 50

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Why did it drop and why is it now rising?

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Looks like William Tate left a dumpster fire behind. Hopefully Rousse can clean it up.

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It was probably inflated past couple of years due to Tate being black and rapidly increasing the black % of enrollees while also bringing in plurality white freshman classes instead of majority white classes. black %’s and total numbers up while white %’s and total numbers down. During this ACT/SAT submissions dropped to 47% for fall 2024 freshmen (2025 data part of missing common data set reports mentioned below).

There is a reason why last year’s common data set reports and last spring’s demographics in the enrollment at a glance have not been published and why there has been zero 2026 freshman class highlights or facts reporting pushed out by LSU. Total white undergraduates are hovering around 50%, and this fall freshman class was Tate’s last with new guys coming in after most offers out. I doubt they could do much (supposedly tried to reduce class a little but not sure how), and it does seem like they want to wait for official census numbers for campus and freshmen to see if anything changes from the unposted 2026 spring numbers or from the preliminary fall numbers before updating all these demographic reports online.

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This really pains me- both my wife and I graduated from LSU. We met the first day of classes. We created a good life with the education that we got at LSU. My son goes to Tulane. Second one wants to go to MIT. LSU wasn’t even on the radar for our family. And we still live in Louisiana.

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My kid is a junior with straight A’s and a 29 on the ACT on her first try last year. She gets mail from so many schools across the country none of them named LSU. I’m not pushing her to make a choice but she did notice that they haven’t sent her anything.

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US News changed the formula to include Pell Grant recipients. Tulane took a big hit a few years ago, but I believe the formula has changed again

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I had read that Pell Grant and disadvantaged students boosted a school's rating. Ultimately, that's not a true measure of a school's worth.

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LSU had been pushing to increase the % of Pell Grant eligible freshman enrollees.

For the fall 2021 freshman class LSU even bragged 30.3% of the incoming class enrollees were Pell eligible. They then went radio silent on this in later freshmen class highlights, but the federal grant dollars seemed to keep going up for LSU’s students.

This was pushed by LSU for the fall of 2021 freshmen class:

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Students who identify as either American Indian, Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian, Hispanic, and two or more races make up more than 30 percent of the total freshman class this year. Additionally, 30.3 percent of the freshman class is Pell Eligible.

“At a time when other schools are scrambling for enrollment and in particular students of color, every year we are breaking records on both fronts,” said Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Dereck J. Rovaris Sr. “The record number of historically underrepresented students is indeed a reflection of the good work so many have done to make LSU a more inclusive university.”

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Considering whites dropped below 50% of the incoming fall freshman classes in both 2024 and 2025 it seems likely LSU under Tate and his hires before new guys continued this Pell Grant push through this fall’s incoming freshmen class along with their non-white push.