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State financial crisis impacts students

With all the politics and hearsay floating around many individuals have lost sight of who is truly being affected by the higher education budget cuts. 

Since 2014, Grambling State University has seen how detrimental budget cuts can be. 

The School of Nursing had struggled to say afloat for some time now and in summer 2015 it was officially closed. 

Due to an overflow of students who did not meet state examination requirements GSU’s school of nursing lost its accreditation. 

To that end, a multitudinous amount of students had to either switch their majors or transfer to schools like Northwestern State University, 

Camika Price and Cameron Sanders, both junior nursing majors from Shreveport, Louisiana were among these students. 

“I’m sad every time I think about how I ended up at a predominantly white institution. I was a semester away from clinicals before I transferred from GSU and I would have rather stayed at my HBCU and feel at home than feel so out of place here around people who don’t look like me,” said Sanders.

 “Because of certain issues with transferrable credit hours I still had to change my major. I contemplate returning to GSU all the time now. I miss you guys,” she added.

Price won the month of Miss April in the calendar portion of 2014-2015 Miss Cover Girl pageant and did not get a chance fully experience this opportunity because of her transfer.

 “This year I was supposed to be a senior, however due to the miscommunication at GSU I had to transfer and basically, stuff happens,” said Price. 

“I’m actually still perturbed with how the events leading up to my inevitable transfer occurred,” added Price

The nursing students are not the only ones whom are affected by controversies at Grambling State. 

Engineering majors have had to struggle with having only one or two instructors for a few years. 

At one point, GSU attempted to merge the program with Louisiana Technical University’s engineering program. 

One of the largest departments here at GSU, the criminal justice department, was short staffed and recently employed two additional instructors now totaling four.

 Also suffering at the hands of the government cutting higher education is the political science department, which has only two professors. 

Students receiving Taylor Opportunity Program for Students scholarships, also called TOPS will be directly affected by these cuts, as the plan is to cut these funds initially. 

TOPS is a program of state scholarships for Louisiana residents who attend either one of the Louisiana Public Colleges and Universities, community colleges, technical colleges, and independent colleges. 

Also to encounter budget cuts will be the athletic department these budget. 

If a resolution is not solved in time, spring sports such as baseball, softball, and track & field will receive scholarship cuts and the soccer team may receive these same deteriorating effects in the fall semester.