Nicholls aims to raise enrollment, stabilize tuition

Nicholls State’s administration has its sights set on increasing enrollment while keeping tuition steady even though the future of higher education in Louisiana is uncertain for programs such as TOPS, Nicholls President Bruce Murphy said Monday.
Murphy was the guest speaker during the St. Mary Industrial Group meeting at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City.
Nicholls is working to stabilize tuition so that more students can afford to attend college, Murphy said. Nicholls was the only public university in Louisiana that didn’t raise tuition in 2015, he said.
“We think that the way ahead is to grow enrollment,” Murphy said.
University leaders can eventually increase enrollment to 8,000 students without greatly expanding the school’s infrastructure, he said.
Murphy didn’t give a time frame for when officials hope to reach the 8,000-student mark.
This spring, Nicholls enrollment was 5,754, according to its website.
For 2015-16, Nicholls had a $55 million operating budget, which is down 8 percent from five years ago. Of the budget, $15.5 million was from state funds, and $39 million came from students’ tuition and fees, he said.
Nicholls has received 11 mid-year cuts to its budget in the past seven years, Murphy said.
Less than two weeks ago, Nicholls officials learned that the university would have to absorb about $1.2 million in TOPS money for the rest of the fiscal year due to state budget cuts. The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students provides scholarships to Louisiana students who attend in-state colleges and meet certain standards.
The state can only afford to pay 80 percent of TOPS for the fiscal year ending June 30. The remaining 20 percent in TOPS payments was passed on to the university.
“TOPS is going to have to change,” Murphy said.
The status of TOPS even for next school year is uncertain while the Legislature wrestles with how to make the program sustainable. Legislators are examining multiple options including whether to raise the TOPS threshold, lower the scholarship amount or decouple TOPS from tuition, he said.
Nicholls’ administration is providing input to legislators and is prepared to react to whatever decisions the Legislature decides, Murphy said.
Thirty-six percent of Nicholls’ students are on TOPS scholarships, and each semester the university gets reimbursed for 12 credit hours on each TOPS student. But students need 15 credit hours per semester to graduate in eight semesters.
Therefore, the non-TOPS students cover the three other credit hours for TOPS students each semester, he said. And, now, with Nicholls now having to absorb TOPS costs, non-TOPS students have to pay those additional costs, Murphy said.
Still, the cost of education at Nicholls actually dropped during the past decade despite state funding for the university declining significantly, he said.
“What has changed is that the burden has shifted from the state appropriation to the students’ tuition and fees,” Murphy said.
Murphy is optimistic about Gov. John Bel Edwards’ vision for Louisiana.
“He (Edwards) said the reason he ran for governor was to help and change education,” Murphy said. “To me, that’s very promising as a president of a state university.”
Murphy believes state higher education is starting to see “the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. There are some more obstacles before the state gets to the light, though, he said.
State leaders are discussing ways to provide “depend-able funding” for higher education institutions, he said.
Murphy also discussed Nicholls importance to and impact to the region.
Nicholls contributes $275 million and 3,000 direct jobs annually to the regional economy.
The university provides about 80 percent of the teacher and nursing work-force in the region, he said. The university recently received news that 95 percent of Nicholls nursing students passed a board certification test on their first try, which is above the state average of 89 percent, he said.
For students interested in culinary school, Nicholls has the only four-year culinary program in Louisiana and is on par with the finest pro-grams in the country while tuition costs just 1/3 the price of other schools, Murphy said.