| Jindal, a presidential hopeful in Washington for an education meeting, met with reporters this week and was immediately confronted with a question about alleged reductions in funding he has made to Louisiana’s higher education budget. Jindal’s budget policies have come under scrutiny since he proposed in his upcoming budget to reduce funding for Louisiana colleges by hundreds of million of dollars. The New York Times, using calculations by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, reported Louisiana’s higher education budget “has been slashed by more than just about any other state since 2008.”
Given these reports, “isn’t it a bit ironic for you to be in Washington talking about education, given the way you’ve cut education and spending in Louisiana?” asked Dave Cook, from the Christian Science Monitor.
Jindal first noted that he has not cut K-12 education funding. He then said his higher education budget “is actually a little bit, just slightly, higher than when I took office.”
This caught our attention because it was a drastically different claim than what had been previously reported. Is Jindal correct that Louisiana’s total higher education budget actually is higher now than it was when he took office in 2008? |