In the Fall semester of 2024, 10,800 students were enrolled at LSUS, a 17% increase from the previous semester, which also produced record-breaking enrollment for the school. LSUS Chancellor Robert Smith hoped LSUS would break 11,000 students enrolled in the Spring of 2025.
"We ended up at 10,926," Chancellor Smith says.
The largest universities in the country have over 50,000 students enrolled. Yet, LSUS is growing despite Louisiana’s high population of workers who don’t pursue higher education.
In addition, four-year universities across the country are facing a looming enrollment cliff, where universities will see a drop in enrollment numbers. But Chancellor Smith anticipates that LSUS will be safe from negative affects an enrollment drop would bring.
On top of that, higher education is facing the potential threat of artificial intelligence. The fast-paced development of generative AI has some educators worried, but not Chancellor Smith.
So, how is LSUS building numbers against the odds?
Primarily, LSUS has massive graduate programs. The Masters program in Health Administration alone has over 1,500 students and is growing. Chancellor Smith says that a healthy graduate program will have between 100 and 200 students.
"This is way beyond healthy," Smith says. "It’s wildly successful, and so is the MBA."
Chancellor Smith says the ever-growing need for nurses and medical staff indicates an ever-growing amount of students who want to pursue those careers. And, according to him, LSUS morphs around the needs of students and their communities.
“We’ve added new programs that are attractive to students and are meeting workforce needs. And we’re doing more of that.”
For example, Smith says that the administration is preparing to propose a new program for data science, something the school lacks now that will potentially bring in more students. Workforce needs are ever changing, which Chancellor Smith says is imperative to keep up with.
"Ten years ago, or twenty years ago there wasn’t cyber security, right? Well, there is now. And it’s in huge demand," Chancellor Smith says. "That’s the biggest option within the computer science program."
While they help with post-university needs, Smith says LSUS helps students during their education as well. Many LSUS students are non-traditional, meaning they might already have jobs, families, or other factors that could make an education seem impossible. To counter this issue, LSUS established an online program. Chancellor Smith notes that two thirds of the total credit hours for the spring semester are from online students. He says the online program can actually engage students more than some in-person classes.
"So, if you’re in an online class, if it’s a discussion class in, let’s say, political science, you can’t hide in the back of the room and not make comments," he says.
One development some teachers are finding in their online and in-person classes is an increase in AI use. Some instructors ban it, others welcome it, and LSUS seems to fall in the latter category while mostly leaving it up to the individual instructors. On one hand, the school has offered students access to an AI machine learning boot camp for future AI and ML professionals. On the other hand, some professors prohibit the use of AI in their assignments.
Smith, having a background in mathematics, recognizes the benefits of AI in universities:
"And, you know, in ten years it’ll be some other technology that will push us to think about things differently."
As well as its limitations:
"So, if I ask Chat GPT, 'Please tell me how to solve the Navier-Stokes equations.' Nobody knows how to solve them. We do know how to generate approximate solutions to Navier-Stokes. That’s how we get weather forecasts. Artificial intelligence is not going to suddenly figure out how to do that."
Keeping an open mind and a watchful eye on artificial intelligence, Smith says he thinks LSUS will not be undermined by AI. Instead, as always, they will move with the constantly shifting needs of the community.
With Red River Radio News, I’m Alaina Atnip.