In late August, Calabasas resident Alli Tucker had moved into
her dorm room at Tulane University in New Orleans and was looking
forward with excitement to beginning classes.
But Tucker and about 70,000 other students in Louisiana were
unable to begin the fall semester as they had planned after
Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans and devastated the
city.
“I had unpacked my dorm,” she said. “I was
there, I was moved in, and then the school was
evacuated.”
Initially, Tucker said Tulane students were told that the school
would reopen within a week of the hurricane, but when the levees
broke and the extent of the damage to the city became evident, it
was clear that this would not be possible.
And Tulane was not alone.
“There’s no place really right now for (students) to
live and go to school in New Orleans,” said Kevin Hardy of
the Louisiana Board of Regents.
With more than ten colleges and universities in the city, and
more in the surrounding areas, this leaves many schools closed for
the fall semester and further into the future.
In response, schools across the nation have opened classes to
students who were unable to return to their schools.
Tucker, along with many other students, was able to take
advantage of these opportunities and will be attending UC Davis for
fall.
But due to location, financial restraints and family
circumstances, not all students who were enrolled in Louisiana
schools will be able to attend another college.
“There’s no doubt about it, that ones who, because
of their financial situation have the fewest choices will be
affected (by the hurricane) in the most negative way,” said
UCLA education professor Mitchell Chang.
Students like Tucker, who have a place to live outside of
Louisiana, are more likely to be able to pursue college than those
who call New Orleans and the surrounding areas home.
With the cost and logistical problems with moving to a school in
another city, attending a school in another state may not be a
viable option for some students.
“There are some opportunities, but there are going to be a
lot of economic barriers to many students to actually following
through and availing themselves of these opportunities,” said
UCLA education professor Jeff Wood.
Though in many cases the tuition at the temporary universities
is covered, Chang speculated that the cost of transferring to
another city and paying for housing may be too much of a burden for
some, especially for those who have lost their homes or other
belongings in the hurricane and subsequent flooding.
For some lower-income students at community colleges, the
obstacle presented by the hurricane will add to a slew of other
barriers that these students typically face.
“We know from higher education research that they already
face more obstacles, and if you add a couple more to their
educational pursuits, it could break their backs,” Chang
said.
Some of these students may put their college career on hold, and
Wood said he expects that another group of students may leave
higher education for good.
“There is definitely going to be some sort of proportion
of students who won’t be able to (go back),” he
said.
There has also been concerns from within Louisiana that once
students leave Louisiana to study elsewhere, they may not come
back.
“Our universities in Louisiana want and are making every
effort to keep Louisiana students in Louisiana,” Hardy
said.
As the people who typically contribute to a region’s
well-being and economic prosperity, the exodus of Louisiana
students may hurt the state in the long run, Chang said.
But Tucker, for one, said she planned to return to Tulane as
soon as possible, even if that meant waiting a year to do so.
“Tulane and New Orleans are really unique ““ you
can’t get it anywhere else,” she said. “I would
give anything to go back.”
In the short term, students and faculty members will have to
look elsewhere to pursue their education and careers and for years
into the future New Orleans schools may struggle.
Speaking as a university professor, Wood pointed to some of the
difficulties faculty at New Orleans universities are likely to
face, both due to the potential lack of employment and loss of
research.
Some universities are continuing to pay their faculty and other
professors have found temporary positions at other
universities.
But Wood said the prospect that universities may stay closed for
an extended period of time raises questions about how long the
institutions can continue to pay professors who are not working and
how those individuals will pursue their careers.
Particularly given the difficulty in achieving tenure at
universities, some professors may find their careers stalling.
“In academia, it is very difficult to find a long-term
tenure track, possibly anywhere in the country,” he said.
If universities are forced to stay closed for an extended period
of time, which Wood said he sees as a possibility, some professors
may be in search of new work ““ and may be unable to find a
comparable job.
“There’s no way of knowing what one’s chances
may be of finding work in another university.”
In the long run, Chang said he believes the schools will come
out of the hurricane as able to provide education and research as
before.
“Universities and colleges are very resilient.
They’ve historically bounced back from some pretty
devastating stuff,” he said.
Chang compared the impact of the Hurricane Katrina on New
Orleans to the effects of major earthquakes in California, which
caused extensive damage to some colleges in the state, such as
California State University at Northridge during the Northridge
earthquake in 1994 and Stanford University during the 1989 Loma
Prieta earthquake.
“Here’s one example, at least a California example,
of how these institutions do recover,” he said.
In much the same way that students with less money will have
more trouble getting their education back on track than
higher-income students, colleges with fewer funds will have a
harder time recovering than private institutions with large
endowments, Chang said.
These campuses, already on tight budgets, will have more trouble
finding the money to recover ““ but as New Orleans gets back
on its feet, the city’s schools will be rebuilt as well.