UL Lafayette’s interim president wants to maximize the school’s revenue potential amid financial woes
Ramesh Kolluru, vice president for research, innovation, and economic development at UL, speaks during a celebration to mark the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s R1 research classification Wednesday, February 23, 2022, on campus in Lafayette, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
Addressing the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s financial issues is twofold, according to Interim President Ramesh Kolluru.
“We need to cut so that we can maintain and manage our financial situation,” he said during a faculty town hall last week. “But it was also important to connect that and couple that with a strategy for growth.”
Kolluru outlined potential paths for increasing revenue in the same meeting in which he updated stakeholders about the state of the university’s deficit. Those possible revenue generation streams include focusing on student enrollment and retention, monetizing physical assets, focusing on ready-applied contracts, assessing philanthropy and evaluating auxiliary and retail opportunities.
Former Interim President Jaimie Hebert, who served in the position for about four months before returning to his position as provost, announced in September that UL had a $25-million deficit on top of a recurring $25 million budget shortfall.
Through cost-cutting measures, including contract cancellations and position eliminations, Kolluru said he expects the university to end the fiscal year in June with only about $10.5 million left of its deficit.
Cost-cutting alone isn’t a sustainable way for the university to fix its financial problems, Kolluru said. He’s proposed a plan that includes restructuring the vice president’s offices and will focus on increasing revenue through a variety of options.
“I want us to build together a student-success-centered university,” he said. “What might that look like is part of what motivated the redesign and the restructure (I’m proposing).”
The biggest priority for Kolluru is student retention and expansion. He called enrollment the “lifeblood of the university” and said, “No amount of money we bring in through any other source at this university is equivalent to what we get in enrollment.”
To help with that, Kolluru asked Hebert to lead a student retention task force, focused on keeping students enrolled who may be at risk of dropping out between the fall and spring semesters.
Kolluru also wants to maximize student enrollment for the summer semester and find ways to reengage with students who started at the university but for some reason or another never graduated. He also said he wants to focus on student well-being to support their mental and physical health while they’re on campus.
The land and buildings the university owns will be assessed to determine if anything can be sold and to maximize the venues that it has, Kolluru said. He wants the university’s auxiliary and retail assets to be assessed for potential monetization and other “non-traditional” ways to create revenue.
He wants to focus on philanthropy and micro-giving. One way will be through the creation of a campaign called the Louisiana Impact Fund, designed to work with supporters, donors and alumni who are interested in investing in the university’s long-term success.
“This is a multi-faceted approach that we are pursuing,” Kolluru said.