Let’s stop calling Louisiana’s TOPS program a ‘burden’
By Robert Mann To hear some of our state’s leaders, you’d think Louisiana’s college tuition assistance program, TOPS, is a ravenous beast that is devouring the budget. “I’ve watched [TOPS] grow over my...
View ArticleLouisiana’s state universities will soon be public in name only
By Robert Mann Their months-long “search” for cuts to solve the state’s budget crisis is over and Louisiana’s House Republicans came up with nothing. Well, that’s not exactly right. They did dredge up...
View ArticleGuns are killing, not protecting, us
By Robert Mann My LSU students had barely unpacked their bags in London in early June before the awful news landed that a shooter had killed 50 and wounded another 53 people in Orlando. What had...
View ArticleVoters to state lawmakers wanting to abandon higher education: Not so fast
By Robert Mann If there was an unequivocal message in the Nov. 8 election returns in Louisiana, it was that voters are tired of rising college costs. They rejected — 57 percent to 43 percent — a...
View ArticleProfessors aren’t indoctrinating students, but some Republicans wish they would
By Robert Mann “I am now ashamed of my time at LSU with this type of biased writing coming out of the [mass communication] department,” a peeved reader wrote in an email to me last week. “Now I can see...
View ArticleLSU grads, on your last day on campus, give your parents a tour of the library
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” ―Walter Cronkite A familar scene in LSU’s Middleton Library By Robert Mann To the LSU class of 2017:...
View ArticlePresident Trump has been great . . . for Europe
By Cyril Vetter Donald Trump has been a great President, so far. At least if you’re a European. In June, I had the pleasure of traveling to Berlin with my friend James Carville, who gave a talk to...
View ArticleCould Louisiana survive without its colleges and universities?
By Robert Mann The differences in opinion are stark but not surprising. “A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58%) now say that colleges and universities have a negative...
View ArticleLSU has too many Confederates
By Robert Mann Shortly after prosecutors sent then-Gov. Richard Leche to federal prison for mail fraud in 1940, Louisiana State University officials erased his name from campus. The school’s law school...
View ArticleWhat Louisiana’s Nicholls State University and Harvard have in common
By Robert Mann In Thibodaux, some residents call Nicholls State University “Harvard on the Bayou.” Nicholls is a fine school, but it’s not in Harvard’s (Ivy) league, except in one respect: both are...
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