That was my point. I dont know the history of the creation of the public universities in Louisiana so I am not even going to try to pretend to know the thought process behind the schools....but you would think with as many state schools as we have there would be one really elite university. Why not make LSU that one? Of course now that I dont have to apply anymore it is easier for me to say that.
I find this all very interesting. I've heard the argument for years, that the reason Tulane never had a competitive sports program vs LSU, was due to their higher admissions standards. I,d be curious to know how our standards differ from say UF, UT etc. Heres the thing that "really" blows me away. With all the "sterling" (well to do Alumni), that certainly, at the "least", should have some influence on politicians etc. Why hasn't more been done for our school? LSU "is" the States flagship, and this should be, if for no other reason, a "pride" issue. Its always seemed to be this way though, I can recall when I was a student, there were calls for improved housing for the students (back then a lot of the housing would have made the "projects" look good). Now, we have a lot more international students attending. In my day there were "some", but by and large, most were Louisiana kids. I have do say, I for one don't agree with the lowering standards. There has to be other ways to do this without that sort of compromise. In the long run, I believe it will hurt us more than help. As always with LSU, people in power need to get of their collective asses get away from the GD gambling casinos for a while, and get this fine university more money it richly deserves.
To play sports in the SEC you have to meet the SEC's minimum requirement and than get cleared by the NCAA. For almost every school in the country it is lower than the regular admission standards so that Tulane excuse is BS. The school has the ability to come in and veto the students admission after the NCAA and conference have cleared him but that happens less than 1% of the time. Aaron Brooks graduated from UVA and he is illiterate.
Tulane's admission standards do not apply to athletes, for one. As far as general minimum admission standards, LSU is slightly under UT, but higher than UGA - not sure about UF but I would assume slightly under. We're a poor state with crappy politicians. Minimum admission requirements do not determine the quality of students that attend the school. Some schools, like UGA, have low minimum requirements (I believe there's are due to a state law), but are just more selective and only the best get accepted. The key to this will be keeping the minimums at LSU high enough to not allow poor students, but low enough to allow flexibility - allowing us to chose which students we want most.
This isn't going to be the most popular move, but it will be one of many big moves by Lombardi that 10 years from now we will say helped make LSU into a much better academic institution.
Putting the cart before the horse. It would take decades for tuition increases alone to build enough infrastructure to accommodate another 10,000 students. Campus was a madhouse when it had 33,000 students and it is still crowded at 28,000. The LSU master plan is going to take a commitment from the State of Louisiana at some point unless we could put together the kind of private endowments that Texas and Notre Dame have . . . but it ain't likely.
fill me in. loans are never adequate? they were adequate for me. better than having to get a second job or getting it from parents. got a job, paid them off.
I would venture to say that a lot of the "sterling" alumni you refer to are not in LA to have any kind of influence. It's one thing to have influence with/at the school. But to influence the polititions, you would need more ties to LA than just having attended LSU.
