Louisiana voters will decide on March 29 whether to overhaul language in the state constitution around budget and taxation, lowering the maximum rate for income tax and increasing the income tax deduction for people over 65. In exchange for the tax cuts, proposed Amendment No. 2 on the ballot would eliminate the Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund, the Education Excellence Fund and the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund, among other programs.
Together, the three funds amount to $2 billion towards education in Louisiana.
The Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund, a $1.4 billion endowment that was started in 1986 to support education enrichment programs, funds the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund. The BoRSF distributes competitive research grants to Louisiana universities, endowments for chairs and for graduate student recruitment. In 2024, the BoR Support Fund allocated $12 million to higher education institutions in Louisiana.
Proposed Amendment No. 2 would eliminate this fund, along with all other sub-funds of the LEQTF.
Research labs at Tulane University would not go unaffected.
Tulane’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering received a nearly $1 million Departmental Enhancement grant from the BoR, the last $100,000 of which may not be paid out if the fund is drained, according to department chair Henry Ashbaugh. The department used the money to invest in better scientific tools, pay select undergraduates for research experience and build up the department’s research capacity to be more competitive for other grants.
Ashbaugh said BoR funds have been supporting university research for 40 years and without the money, Louisiana universities will draw less research. Funds from the BoR allow “people at Tulane to make real economic impacts, to try to draw research here and then hopefully improve the local economy,” Ashbaugh said.
Funding from the BoR also supports research at Tulane’s Brain Institute, in the Department of Anthropology and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. If proposed Amendment No. 2 passes, no new grants will be awarded by the BoR, but it is unclear whether multi-year grants would continue to be paid out.
Isabel Nichoson is a Ph.D. student in the Social Memory Lab at Tulane studying social cognition in infants using fMRI . Because her area of study is relatively niche, it is not usually available for industry or pharmaceutical funding, making it reliant on other funding streams like government grants.
“Scientific research beyond the pursuit of financial goals is the most valuable type of scientific research,” Nicholson said. “Research that is separate from any profit motivation should be privileged, beyond any other type of research, because that is, I think, what will truly advance scientific knowledge.”
The wording of proposed Amendment No. 2 on the ballot is being challenged in court for misrepresentation by focusing solely on tax reduction and not mentioning the Education Quality Trust Fund. New Orleans attorney William Most filed a lawsuit claiming the language is “biased and misleading,” violating the state law requiring ballot language to be simple and unbiased.
Ian Faul contributed to the reporting of this story.
