University President Stephen Hulbert said talk about Nicholls becoming a two-year college is speculation. The commission created by the legislature to review the state’s higher education system will meet for the second time next week. Gov. Bobby Jindal requested the commission find $146 million to cut from higher education. Hulbert said it is impossible to know what the commission will recommend.

“It is passing of rumors and gossip when we haven’t even begun to hear the discussion or plans of the commission,” Hulbert said. “I can’t tell you what the Postsecondary Education Review Commission will come up with.”

Although Hulbert cannot predict what the commission will recommend to the legislature next February, he said Nicholls provides an important service to the community as a four-year institution.

“Nicholls has matured over 60 years into a strong regional institution,” Hulbert said. “This region has been able to grow because of the baccalaureate degrees Nicholls has offered. That’s what a regional institution does for a state.”

The region is dependent on Nicholls to provide a workforce with a college degree, Hulbert said. According to the Office of University Relations, 84 percent of licensed registered nurses in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes earned an associate or bachelor’s degree from Nicholls.

“The Nicholls Department of Nursing certainly contributes to the economic development and well being of the Bayou Region, as does the University as a whole,” Sue Westbrook, dean of the College of Nursing and Allied Health, said in a press release. “These new figures verify that the number of Nicholls-educated, licensed registered nurses in our region is enormous.”

An economic impact study released earlier this year said Nicholls provides an $8 return on every $1 of state funds invested in the University.

This semester marked the first time enrollment surpassed 7,000 students since Nicholls implemented selective admission standards in 2005. Nicholls turned away about 600 students in fall 2005 that did not meet the new admission criteria, Hulbert said.

“It takes about four years for enrollment to begin to move upward,” Hulbert said. “We started turning the enrollment back around almost immediately.”

Hulbert said prospective students are attracted to Nicholls for a variety of reasons which include the quality of academic programs, the new residence halls and renovations to the cafeteria and academic buildings.

“Nicholls has become a school of choice,” Hulbert said.