On Wednesday, Apr. 15, groups of college students from across the state traveled to the state capital to voice their concerns about higher education cuts.

The Council of Student Body Presidents presented this statewide demonstration, and students from universities across the state gathered as the legislators met for regular session, which began on Monday.

Louisiana’s higher education system has been cut over $700 million dollars since 2008, and school tuition for full-time students have increased nearly 98 percent since then, according to the demonstration event page on Facebook.

When the page was created, Louisiana was threatened with a $608 million cut to the higher education budget, which is a part of the $1.2 billion total state budget cut.

According to the Facebook page, the purpose of the demonstration has been, “to show support that Louisiana’s higher education systems cannot endure an environment where it is constantly stripped of money.”

Another Facebook page titled “No Funds No Future” posted, “Our teachers deserve more for the work they are doing, and our students deserve fairness in striving to better themselves and the communities in which they live.”

Graphic design senior Nick Boutte said budget cuts would make it harder for people to go to school and then get jobs since, “education is the main force for jobs.”

Boutte said that cutting higher education did not make sense, especially since it would be cutting funds for people who really need them for school.

According to assistant art professor Gaither Pope, the art department was very involved in 2010 when budget cuts started to take effect, but did not play as big of a role in the demonstration on Wednesday.
He said that in the past, students created an organization and had faculty advisors, but this year faculty is letting students take the lead.

In the past, the art department launched the “Nicholls Dollars” campaign, which helped show the community how important Nicholls was to the region. Students and faculty would pay for their purchases with cash as well as a red “Nicholls dollar.”

This year, Nicholls distributed cards for students, faculty, staff and community members to sign saying, “I stand for higher education.” The University has also distributed cards to local businesses to spread awareness.

Pope said, “The people who are really getting taxed are the students. They have a real stake in this because they’re the ones paying higher tuition.”

“No one has disparaged faculty from being involved,” Pope said, “but my impression is that this was more of a student thing.”

Pope said that according to University President Bruce Murphy, the number of student votes makes up a strong voting block, but he also said that he knows there are many students who are not registered to vote.

In his “Enough is Enough” student rally on Mar. 26, Murphy said that there were around 238,000 students that could potentially vote in favor of higher education.

He said that higher education is a public good, and any fee increase would be a tax increase.
Murphy said, “We have a seat at the table,” and on Wednesday, students finally spoke up at that table.