1 week Ago
LSU President William F. Tate IV, center, speaks alongside LSU system chancellors and representatives on LSU Day at the Capitol, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, in downtown Baton Rouge, La. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Since taking the reins of Louisiana’s flagship university four years ago, LSU President William Tate IV has celebrated some big wins.
The public university shattered enrollment records last fall, with nearly 42,000 students across its eight campuses and online and its highest-achieving class of incoming freshmen ever. This week, LSU announced another milestone : The university spent a record $543 million on research during the 2023-24 academic year, with most of the funds coming from federal grants and contracts. The research has improved Louisiana’s agricultural yields, led to advances in cancer treatment, protected the state’s coasts and fisheries, enhanced cybersecurity and promoted the energy industry, the university said.
“The momentum is jaw dropping,” Tate said in an interview Wednesday at the state Capitol, where he'd come to tout the school’s accomplishments during its annual “LSU Day” celebration. Yet LSU also faces headwinds that could disrupt its progress and derail its research. The National Institutes of Health and the U.
S. Department of Energy have said they will slash research funding for universities . The moves have been challenged in court, but they could cost universities billions of dollars if enacted.
The financial uncertainty led Tate to enact a systemwide hiring freeze last month. President Donald Trump has also threatened to cut funding to universities that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, which Trump calls discriminatory. And his administration has revoked international students’ visas, though federal officials said Friday they would temporarily restore the students’ legal status.
Closer to home, LSU is navigating questions from lawmakers about its enrollment practices, state hiring restrictions and a possible reduction in state-funded scholarships . The Times-Picayune and The Advocate asked Tate about LSU’s recent gains and the challenges ahead. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How did LSU get to this record level of research activity? It’s grown 14% a year for the last three years. The plan was very clear: We were doubling down on our identity as an A&M school where agriculture and mechanical was going to drive what we did. We came up with our "pentagon" strategy of agriculture, biomedical science, coastal research, defense and energy.
The momentum is jaw dropping relative to where we were four years ago. It was a business plan that's now coming to life. It's exciting for students.
You can go to a place where people are actually working with companies, innovating and creating solutions to problems. What’s the status of LSU’s federal research funding? Right now we're not affected because all of the those decisions (to reduce funding) are in court. If the NIH (National Institutes of Health) one happened, that's a $12 million hit for us as a system.
Department of Energy is about a million dollars that we would have to come up with ourselves. Our hope is that there is a negotiation and we can come up with a rate that actually covers our cost for doing research. If the federal cuts are upheld, what would be the impact at LSU? Potentially you would not have funding for some staff, researchers and students.
We've been operating with the perspective that we can make it through this year. Then in the out years we would have to make some decisions. All of our letters to graduate students right now are conditional.
You’re admitted conditioned on having the financial support to take care of you. That's a very precarious situation because you're talking about the most talented students in the country. You’re basically telling them they have a conditional opportunity to go to our school as opposed to saying you're definitively coming and we're going to help you get a Ph.
D. in physics or astronomy or microbiology or agriculture. We can't definitively say that right now and some of them will decide not to do it.
That's a talent loss for the country. The chancellor of LSU’s medical school in New Orleans recently said that Gov. Jeff Landry’s state-government hiring freeze could have a “devastating” effect on the school.
Can you talk about that? We're in a competition for clinicians — either we hire them or someone else does. We have health care partners that have to have these clinicians because they're doctors who actually serve people while they simultaneously teach. If we don't hire them, another organization might.
That keeps us from growing our research. It keeps us from having the people we need. A big part of our request to the state will be: We've got to be able to hire our clinical faculty.
They aren't really paid with state dollars, they generate their own revenue. So we're hopeful that those kinds of requests will be able to be dealt with. One way LSU generates revenue is by enrolling out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition.
Can you talk about that? The strategy is to maintain or increase the number of in-state students, which is basically what the data says we've done. And because LSU is a very big brand in the higher ed marketplace, we can take in more out-of-state students who are very qualified. For every one we admit, they pay for two students who are actually here.
So they subsidize the current students. What I always say is we're the biggest in-migration tool in the state of Louisiana. If we keep just one or two out of every 10, that's a really talented set of people who are going to come here and be taxpayers and add value to our state.
A bill in the Louisiana Legislature would set new rates for the state’s TOPS college scholarships that are higher at most schools, but lower at LSU (for some TOPS awards). What’s your stance on the bill? Well we're working with our legislative friends to educate them as best we can. We're trying to help everyone understand the full impact of any decision.
I feel comfortable with the fact that they're very open to being educated. The bill was recently amended to add an extra stipend for LSU’s TOPS students. Does that go far enough? You know that's really a question for the parents.
More than a dozen international students in Louisiana were among those whose visas were revoked. Have any LSU students been affected? I have not received any information that suggests we've had any visas revoked or any visa problems at all. About 4% of LSU students are international.
What is the university doing to support them? Well I think on all of our campuses our teams are working with the students to help them understand the policies going on in the country and to just affirm that we value them. Critics argue that the Trump administration's efforts to force changes at universities pose a threat to academic freedom . What are your thoughts on that? The foundational purpose of the university is the pursuit of truth.
Our job is to be able to pursue and discover what is real and true and I don't think we should deviate from that pursuit. And I promise faculty that there's one hill to die on — the one related to their ability to pursue the truth. We're confident that we're going to keep fighting for that, but we haven't had any local pressures related to that at all.
In fact, many of our legislative friends have put together proposals (to promote) freedom of speech. So I'm thankful for that right now..
