Serious consideration should be given by our legislature to changing the official state motto from “Union, Justice, Confidence” to something more realistic representation of our state—like, say… “At Least We Ain’t Mississippi” (or Arkansas or West Virginia).
On the other hand, West Virginia’s motto “Let Us be Grateful to God” seems a little misplaced as regards this story. the Arkansas motto “The People Rule” just has to be some kind of cruel joke and I still don’t know what our neighbors in Mississippi meant when they adopted “By Valor and Arms” as their calling card.
I write all this because 24/7 Wall Street, that online research service that publishes all those state, city and national surveys of the best and worst of just about anything, has just released another one that puts us right near the bottom but for Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia.
The ranking referred to in this case is “America’s Most and Least Educated States” and it has to be embarrassing to have Alabama and Kentucky looking down their noses at us. Yet, there was Alabama ranked as the seventh worst educated state with Kentucky just two notches better at the fifth-least educated.
And then there was Louisiana, sitting at 47th best, or to put it more bluntly, fourth-worst educated state in the country.
We should be so proud.
Yes, college tuition has more than doubled over the past three decades and in Louisiana, thanks to Bobby Jindal, who now plies his trade as an op-ed columnist for the Wall Street Journal (because he has so much good government advice to share based on his stellar job as governor), who slashed funding for higher education by about 70 percent.
Louisiana has TOPS, which was originally set up to help students in need but which now is spread across the landscape for all students who maintain a 2.5 GPA while enrolled. Of course, what has gone virtually unsaid is that TOPS has resulted in an explosion of new housing construction on college campuses, underwritten by the universities but constructed by private investors in an elaborate scheme that allows universities to avoid having to go hat in hand to the State Bond Commission for permission to build the new units.
Some schools even require all unmarried, non-local students (that’s all students, as in freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors) to live on campus so as to fill those new housing units. Unsaid is a requirement that all such students purchase meal tickets.
That’s because, according to a former Aramark food manager at a state university, the schools have contracts with food service companies to provide a predetermined number of meals. If, say, Grambling University has a contract with Aramark to provide three meals per day for 3,000 students, Grambling will do all in its power to fill the housing units (thus committing students to pay for the accompanying meal tickets). Should the school fall short and end up with only 2,000 students living in university housing, the school is still on the hook to Aramark for 9,000 meals per day.
Still, the share of Americans (in other states, apparently, but not here) with college degrees continues to increase. Latest figures show that 32 percent of all U.S. adults 25 and over have at least a bachelor’s degree, nearly double the 17 percent of 1980.
In Louisiana, that figure is 23.8 percent, 4th lowest in the U.S.
“Many of the state-level disparities in educational attainment parallel disparities in income, as well as socioeconomic factors such as unemployment, industry composition, and population growth,” the report said.
Accordingly, in Louisiana, the median household income was 4th lowest at $46,145 and the state’s unemployment rate of 5.1 percent was 4th highest in the nation. If you’re one to play hunches, you might remember the number 4 when you go to the racetrack or fill out your Mega Millions and Power Ball tickets.
Arkansas (23.4 percent of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree), Mississippi (21.9 percent) and West Virginia (20.2 percent), ranked 48th, 49th and 50th, respectively followed the pattern with Arkansas’s $45,869 median household income being the 3rd lowest, Mississippi’s $43,529 the 2nd lowest and West Virginia’s $43,296 the lowest. Do you see a trend here?
By contrast, Massachusetts topped the list with 43.4 percent of its adults holding at least a bachelor’s degree while the state’s median household income of $77,385 was 4th highest.
To review the entire list, state-by-state, GO HERE.
But hey, the news isn’t all bad.
Yet another survey, also by 24/7 Wall Street, that lists the 30 COLLEGES THAT PRODUCE the BEST NFL PLAYERS, actually has LSU ranked higher than Alabama even though the Crimson Tide did have two more all-time NFL players than did the Tigers.
LSU was ranked number 7, four rungs higher than ‘Bama, which came in at number 11. Alabama has 352 all-time NFL players to LSU’s 350. But LSU has 116 Pro Bowl players to 104 for the Tide. ‘Bama, on the other hand, has 8 alumni in the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame, to 3 for LSU. Notre Dame, as might be expected, ranked first, with 567 former players going on to the NFL and the Fighting Irish also led the pack with 182 Pro Bowl selections and 13 alumni in the Hall of Fame.
But here’s the caveat: “No college has produced more current NFL players than LSU and Florida,” the survey says. “The Tigers and Gators are tied with 56. There were eight Tigers drafted in 2017, including three first-round selections.
So, with all that gridiron success by LSU, who needs college degrees anyway?
If the Tigers can just somehow beat Nick Saban’s bunch, median income figures are for the politicians.
If LSU wins a national championship, nobody will care about unemployment rates.
We have our priorities in Louisiana.
Louisiana Voice 
Super piece, Tom – But you know very well what Mississippi’s slogan, “By Valor and Arms” means. It could as easily read, “Steadfast against Northern Aggression” or, “We might have lost one time, but this time we’ll be ready.”
P. S. You mention Massachusetts. Look at their high rankings in most things at any number of websites. There are good reasons obvious to anybody looking, just as the reasons we remain mired at the bottom are.
Where I live, in rural North Louisiana, there are many “educated folks”. Meaning they have high school, some college and even degrees. However, the only education that seems to drive their opinions and decisions is FOX University. The conservative media, going back to am talk radio shows, has been extremely successful in messaging a very divisive, self-destructive pulp fiction. I was never one to submit to “mind bending” so I am just about a minority of one….I see/hear this every day. At the moment, it is interesting that when Trump is mentioned, they go very, very quiet. Not sure what this means but at least they are under ground and not full throttle in his favor. We are so full of willful ignorance. End of Rant and thank you, Tom, for a real reality check!
I could go into specifics as to what is wrong and what needs to be done, but if I did people would haul me off. Spending a 30+ year career in the bowels of the criminal justice system will tell you everything you need to know on what is wrong with our state and why we have passed the tipping point. To be blunt, nobody givers a crap any more; it’s always someone else’s responsibility and if you wait long enough, someone will come along and throw money at you to assuage their conscience. We’re at the point where we’ve run out of money to throw at the problem and it’s gonna get real ugly. Trust me on this one.
But hey, we got casinos, the food is great and the football is good.
During my almost-decade working at the LA Department of Education, I stumbled across some mindbending truths and facts. First, the oligarchs have a vested interest in maintaining a sizable, poorly educated underclass – people who are easier to control with conservative fictions and will thus vote with the oligarchs and against their own best interests most of the time. Plus, the uneducated provide an unending source of cheap labor. Second, Louisiana’s poor public education system – pre-K, K-12 and higher education, has little public support by design, and thus has fewer resources, so as to maintain doctrine number one (keep ’em ignorant). However, public school students fortunate enough to attend our schools for gifted and high-performing students usually have high educational achievement.
Fact #3. Louisiana’s non-public K-12 schools generally provide an outstanding education to those whose parents can afford tuition (in addition to regular property taxes that generally fund public education). These include parochial, religious and secular private schools, many of which provide stratospheric educational opportunities. (Of course, others are average and some are completely useless.) But Louisiana children of wealth and privilege generally attend schools that provide a world class education; they go on to distinguished colleges and universities.
Fact #4: 100 percent of Louisiana public high school students take the ACT (American College Test). The national average composite score was 21.0 in 2017. The Louisiana state average was 19.5, well below average. The Louisiana average score is virtually unchanged since the late 1990s.
Fact #5: The national average score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test in 2017 was 1060. Louisiana students who took the SAT in 2017 had a healthy average score of 1198, well above the national average. Only 4 percent of Louisiana students chose to take that test, most of whom attended non public schools.
Which get us back to facts number 1, 2 and 3.
I could not locate any stats on the number of non public high school students who end up playing for the NFL. But many of those schools do have great athletic programs. The difference between non public and public school teams, I believe, is which group sells the World’s Finest Chocolate to pay for uniforms and equipment.
The Louisiana School for Math, Science & the Arts, located in Natchitoches, LA provided the “magnet school on steroids” experience for my daughter. Our rural school system offered no opportunities for advanced classes or incentives to excel academically. However, a state championship in any athletic form was/is proudly posted on the highway signs…this about sums it up. Thank God for LSMSA, which afforded my daughter the path to her PhD in Clinical Psychology,through LSUBR. Sadly, she does not practice in Louisiana…
That’s right. GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!