Louisiana senator seeks to undo admission criteria penalties

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — After Louisiana’s higher education policy-making board toughened admissions criteria for public universities, the chairman of the state Senate's education committee immediately filed legislation aimed at undoing the financial penalties added for schools that violate the standards.

Sen. Cleo Fields, a Baton Rouge Democrat, argues that the Board of Regents doesn’t have the authority to strip money from universities that repeatedly breach the admissions criteria. He wants lawmakers to declare the board can’t follow through on those new penalties.

“The board does not have the constitutional authority to appropriate state funds or take funds away from an institution, regardless of admission standards, and this bill will make that clear,” Fields said in a statement.

The Board of Regents added the threat of financial penalties for campuses that disobey its minimum admission standards in a rewrite of the 15-year-old standards approved last week without objection.

The board, which divvies up most state financing for public college campuses through its funding formula, has never penalized schools for not complying with admissions criteria. Under the new rules, regents would have to vote to strip any money from a school — and the threat of reduced funding doesn't come unless a school has breached the policy for two consecutive years.

Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed and her staff led the rewrite after LSU sparked criticism for breaching the requirements and granting more exceptions than allowed. All three of the state's university systems said they supported the updated standards, including the penalties.

Fields would nullify the financial penalties in his proposal, which lawmakers will consider in the legislative session that begins March 9. The state senator said the...