University of Louisiana System

That's typically how I work though, Rick.

And thanks for being so gracious as I literally tackle people and go, hey man, don't you know me? But we know you and we know the work that you're doing at the University of Louisiana system.

But before we dive into that, set us up for a listener that goes, wait a minute, the Louisiana system, how do I think about that? How many students, how many institutions, geography? Give us the lay of the land, so to speak.

Absolutely.

So here in Louisiana, we have four higher ed systems.

We have the University of Louisiana system, which is the largest of our higher ed systems.

Then there's the other system that seems to produce Heisman Trophy winners and a lot of drama.

Let's talk about that today,

I gotta tell you guys of the, uh, Louisiana...

What do you call that guy that runs the colleges for the University of Louisiana-- I mean, for the Louisiana system? That, uh, that ULL and Tech and Grambling and we're all in the-- It's called the Louisiana-- University of Louisiana System, okay? I've got to read this to you.

This is a, this is the, this is the college, um, burst of the higher education bubble burst I've been talking about.

This is a letter from Rick Gallo, who's the president and CEO of the University of Louisiana System.

He's from Ruston.

Uh, he's a colleague.

Got it.

[laughs] I won't get a raise for my five hundred and eighty-eight thou- th- thousand a year.

I think the first point is, um, yes, you are correct that, um, the Board of Regents, you know, particularly one board member, um, you know, late, uh, you know, last week basically kind of just dropped this, you know, just ba- basically his opinion as far as like, "Hey, you know, we need to take a serious look at the, the athletics deficit that, you know, a couple of these, you know, public universities in Louisiana are currently facing right now." You know, Louisiana Tech currently has a, a $10 million athletic deficit, and, you know, he also mentioned, you know, Louisiana Lafayette and ULM as well that, you know, are currently facing athletic deficits.

And I think the re- the real big news, like you mentioned, you know, was obviously, you know, you know, the regents member, you know, Wilbur Pryor, he, he himself basically said, "Hey, you know, I think we really need to take a long look at, you know, whether or not these schools should remain at the FBS level and, and, and should they drop down to the FCS level." Um, that was followed by, you know, late, uh, later in the week, you know, the, the Lu- University of Louisiana system did in fact, and they have hired a consulting firm to examine, you know, basically the athletic budget problems, um, and basically recommend solutions for these schools.

Um, you know, it's certainly an ongoing process, and I think at the baseline of it, um, it, it really just sounds like this is gonna be basically a, you know, a recommendation, a, a fact-finding mission of basically figuring out where, where can we find, um, you know, places for these schools to get out of the red.

Um, I, I think what Louisiana Tech and what a lot of these schools are gonna argue back, and you certainly have seen that from the university side of things, is this is not a, a, a Louisiana Tech, Lafayette, ULM issue.

He, LSU has a $40 million plus athletic deficit, and no one really wants to talk about that.

So this is not a unique issue for Louisiana Tech and these other Sun Belt schools.

But, um, I do think just the fact that, right, their, their governing body of the University of Louisiana System is, um, in the process of making, you know, just all these findings and basically, you know, wanna give their recommendations to these schools of, "Hey, like, we're in charge of your budgets every single year.

We're the one that allocate these funds, and, and if you guys aren't being financially responsible, like we have to take action and we have to look at, at recommendations to keep you guys out of the red." So that's the bottom line of it.

There is a Louisiana system that's going to determine whether they do move down from FBS to FCS.

It's not the Board of Regents, but it is the University of Louisiana system is what it's going to be.

But he also said it's not going to happen nearly as soon as I think this report's going to come out.

It's going to be very interesting to see.

Ultimately, when you look at those three schools, when you look at ULM, LIHTC, and Lafayette University of Louisiana.

All three of those institutions fall under the UL System Board.

And so that would be the group who would do that.

And it's my understanding that the next step in this process, I believe that the UL System Board has contracted Deloitte, an outside consulting firm, to come in and to look at all three institutions.

what they're spending in athletics, what revenues they're bringing in, the overall financial health of the individual institutions, and how sustainable or is it sustainable going forward for these institutions? But there are a lot of factors that will go into this decision.

We're talking with John Hartwell, Director of Client Relations.