Letter: Jindal fiddles as colleges burn

Louisiana’s governor must be a fiddler.

As the administration’s budget fires are razing the state’s institutions of higher education, Gov. Bobby Jindal is certainly absent from any active leadership role to limit the damage.

For now, there are no votes in it.

Perhaps our “mystic masseur” is off instead tuning his image and reeling catchy sound bites and platitudes for his “base.”

It is evident that, at best, Jindal sees public higher education in Louisiana as little more than post-high school student job training, for which the only relevant questions are how many students graduate, and how fast.

From that perspective, why care about or fight for quality? Why fight for institutions that don’t support a controlled political agenda? Why has Jindal failed to provide leadership for Louisiana’s higher education? Why has his administration presented the system with reductions that could result in 1990s spending levels and cripple institutions such as LSU, UNO and ULL for decades?

The simple answer is that Jindal is not a product of public higher education himself and has no personal investment in its institutions.

Does anyone have any illusions about the prospects for future Jindal family Tigers? His alma mater is a New England Ivy that is far removed from the causes and concerns of Louisiana’s people.

Jindal’s post-gubernatorial future will also be far beyond the cares of Baton Rouge — Washington, New York or abroad perhaps — where he will bear no responsibility or cost for the unprecedented damage that is taking place now.

If Jindal will not fight for the future of public higher education in Louisiana, then the people must. There is simply too much at stake to leave the state’s future to someone who isn’t passionate about it: Jobs, health, environment, economy and quality of life all depend on the quality of higher education.

It is time to demand that the Legislature abandon entrenched political positions and find practical solutions to problems through a rational budgeting process and, if needed, increased taxes.

Louisiana cannot just cut its way to prosperity. It must invest strategically, and that includes supporting its colleges and universities, not burning them to the ground while the governor plays his fiddle.

Michael King
academic consultant
Baton Rouge