Support for Louisiana, the state we're in is provided by.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together.

Together.

Together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Zigler Foundation and the Zigler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you and.

And instead of saying, well, it's only a it's only a private good for somebody to get a college degree, it's actually a public good.

The suspension of federal student loan payments set to expire late this summer.

The last thing we want is a person to be judged on the basis of their skin color.

Affirmative action struck down by the Supreme Court.

What that could mean for us.

The joy that he brought and his passion for teaching and his passion for for sharing this lifestyle.

That's why he's got a reef named after him.

In artificial reef, brings marine life and anglers back to Jefferson Parish.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Kara St. Cyr.

And I'm Karen Leblanc Well, hurricane season may look a little different than we thought.

Climatologists at Colorado State University now predict a more active season with 18 named storms instead of 13.

Well, at the beginning of the season, weather experts claimed we'd see a less active season because of El Nino.

But unusually warm waters in the Atlantic are creating the perfect cocktail for a storm.

Colorado State University says its June forecasts are usually around 64% accurate.

And now to other news making headlines across the state.

Minors in Louisiana will soon need a parent's permission before opening social media accounts under a bill.

Governor John Bel Edwards just signed into law.

Social media accounts will have to provide a form for parents to sign a toll free number.

They can call an email where they can provide permission or any other reasonable method of obtaining consent.

The law will also require social media sites to create more protections when children use their services.

The Louisiana federal judge's ruling is sparking a debate over how government agencies can interact with media platforms.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doty prevented several federal agencies with the Biden administration from contacting social media companies about online content.

Judge Doty ruled that communication between the groups would put free speech at risk.

While opposers argue that this decision could lead to the spread of misinformation.

It's not in your head.

This summer is hotter than usual.

Baton Rouge experienced their hottest June on record while New Orleans saw its third hottest June on record, pushing Louisiana to the top of the list for extreme temperatures nationwide.

An analysis by The New York Times ranked Baton Rouge as heat index as a number one on their list of dangerous heat forecast.

New Orleans, Lafayette and Shreveport ranked in the top eight.

Scientists with the National Integrated Heat Health Information System predict Baton Rouge will continue to experience extreme temperatures in the future.

They're predicting 131 days of extreme heat per year by 2050.

Soon, borrowers of federal student loans will have to start making payments that have been on pause since March 2020.

Last week, the US Supreme Court struck down President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, which wiped away up to $20,000 of debt for all federal student loan borrowers.

Here's more.

It's orientation day at Southern University for incoming freshmen.

Less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to end the federal government's student loan forgiveness program, many of these incoming students are financing their higher education, tuition, room and board and living expenses, and it all adds up to debt when they graduate.

I took out, I can say, about $6,000 as far as loans just to pay for my housing for two semesters.

So no telling as far as the next semester what I have to take out.

Darnisha Robinson and Tori Evans are Southern University students and leaders of the Student Orientation Program.

So as orientation leaders we come across, students say like, Hey, I don't have the money to pay for housing.

So we see a lot of kids are like worried about debt or how am I going to get a loan?

How am I going to get a scholarship?

Southern University Chancellor and President Dennis Shields can relate to these students financial concerns.

He, too financed his college and law school educations.

Our students, a significant number of them, graduate with 25 $30,000 in debt.

And you know, what's the impact that that has?

Well, it means that they don't buy a new car.

They don't buy a house.

They don't start creating wealth for them in their families until much later in their careers.

In Louisiana, the average student loan debt totals $34,525, according to the Education Data Initiative, which ranks the state 25th in the nation.

When it comes to the size of student loan debt.

My personal grad school loans are at 6.8% and my home mortgage is at only three.

So when you think about the long term repayment options of any loan, when the interest rates higher, it's going to take you possibly longer to pay it off because interest will compound or depending on how the loan is set up, or it will take a higher payment amount.

Jessica Sharon is president of Louisiana Jumpstart, a statewide coalition of banks, credit unions, nonprofits and government agencies that foster financial education across Louisiana.

You have individuals who are paying off student loans ten, 20, even 30 years, and some people never pay them off.

Debt repayment can't keep pace with a rising cost of living and paychecks.

That's part of the problem.

Another factor, predatory lending practices.

Lenders charging high interest rates on student loans, a lack of financial literacy.

Another root cause of mounting student loan debt.

Chancellor Shields sees more robust subsidies for higher education as part of the solution.

What President Biden was actually trying to do is actually replace that subsidy on higher education.

There's all kinds of resources that we bring to bear on these students.

What hasn't kept up is the way we've subsidized public higher education.

Part of the challenge we have in terms of the narrative is that we have this very American sense that people shouldn't get anything they don't deserve.

I wasn't in more any more entitled to, you know, a fairly low cost education than any of these young people walking around today.

We need to change the narrative about how we talk about is higher education valuable?

You get some pushback on that.

Congress is working on alternative solutions to mounting student debt and higher education cost.

U.S.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a critic of President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, coauthored proposed legislation focused on financial literacy and lending transparency.

We are now with with student loan borrowers on the hook for $1.6 trillion.

President Biden's approach doesn't address the student loan crisis.

It doesn't forgive it.

It just transfers it to other people who either never took student loans or who chose to pay theirs back.

Senator Cassidy is calling for more data made available to students to help them analyze the potential return on investment in higher education.

A lot of kids end up taking on student loan debt, going into a curriculum, and they're never going to earn enough money to pay back the student loan.

If I enter this curriculum at this university, what's my likelihood of graduating?

How much money am I going to have to borrow on average?

And what will I earn if I graduate in this curriculum?

There are financial resources other than federal student loans.

At the state level, there's START.

Louisiana's 5 to 9 college savings program and tops merit based scholarships for Louisiana residents, plus assorted scholarships and grants with different qualifications.

However, tuition is often times when you include fees much higher than what's given for tops.

And so even for students who qualify for that, it doesn't cover everything that they have to pay.

And we also live in a state where the average income is much lower and over 20% of individuals live in poverty, one of the highest in the nation.

For those who take out student loans and have trouble paying them back.

There are options as well.

There's repayment options that are based on your income, based on how much you earn as you go.

It's called earn as you go plan.

And there's also forgiveness for certain type of jobs.

So for things like individuals who work for government jobs or non-profits, there may be opportunities for their loans to be forgiven at some point or in some fashion.

With the interest rate on many student loans nearly double that of a home mortgage.

The math adds up to a huge setback for quality of life, financial security and some argue society at large.

You know, that's the choice that we're making as a society, that we're going to place that burden more on the actual individual as opposed to seeing it as society investing in its well-being instead of saying, well, it's only a it's only a private good for somebody to get a college degree.

It's actually a public good.

The U.S. attorney general is urging student loan borrowers to be aware of fraudsters pretending to be loan servicers or promising debt relief.

If you have questions about student loan repayment services or scams, you can call the attorney General Student Loan Helpline at 1-800-455-2456.

Last week, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, ruling that race can no longer be a factor in college admissions.

This is a landmark decision that will force schools to reshape the way they admit students.

Here to talk about the implications of that decision and how it affects us here in Louisiana is political analyst Jim Engster Thank you so much for joining us, Jim.

How you doing?

Doing well.

All right.

So like I said, Supreme Court struck down affirmative action that had been in play for about 40 years or so.

So what how was affirmative action used?

And I guess, you know, how is that factored into college admissions in the first place?

Affirmative action was a way to have equity in the classroom and have more students of color participate at the highest levels of academia.

This case involved Harvard, a major private university in the Ivy League and the University of North Carolina, which has quite a reputation in its own right and as a public institution.

And on occasion, race was used as a factor to get more blacks and other minorities into those universities in the Supreme Court.

But it's six three to say that that can't be done, at least not in the way it has been.

And this completely reverses a decision of just 20 years earlier in which the court ruled five four the other way.

So it's remarkable when two justices go from one side to the other, even though the court is configured differently.

It makes a world of difference because the difference between four votes and six votes is the fact that the law has been changed.

But it's too early to see how this plays out.

But there was already a move, for example, in the state of Missouri, based on this decision to do away with race based financial aid.

So if we take all the tools out of the toolbox that enable universities to have more people who are nonwhite, then we're going to have more whites and fewer minorities participating at the institutions that are considered primary as far as people getting an education in our country.

Well, let's back up for a minute.

Not everybody thinks that this decision is a bad one.

Some people see this as an opportunity to reshape the way colleges admit students and maybe make it a little bit more equitable.

Is that something that you've also heard, that this is a chance to just redefine everything and start fresh?

Well, I think in an ideal world, yes, it would be something that would be good because the last thing we want is a person to be judged on the basis of their skin color.

But I don't think that affirmative action did that.

It was just one way to enable kids who didn't have the opportunities on the average that other kids do.

Kids who are in the majority race to enable them to have the same opportunity.

But we'll see.

And there are always exceptions, as we know, and but in this case, I think on the whole, it will be something that will certainly mean that there will be more whites in higher education attending these schools and fewer blacks.

All right.

So you were mentioning the other schools that have done away with this affirmative action ruling, I mean, years ago.

So do you see any other policies that schools could implement to ensure that there is diversity now that there is no affirmative action?

Well, the Supreme Court did in its ruling, in the majority opinion, did say that a kid in an essay, for example, could note that he or she is black or Hispanic or Asian and use that as as a way of saying that it's affected their life experience.

And because of that, they could add some something to the university that would not be there if they were not part of it.

But that's a much harder lift than to just basically say, look, we've got to have more people of color on campus or we won't be reflective of the states we represent.

And people say, why is Harvard involved?

They're a private school.

Well, they get federal funding.

And Harvard, for example, has an endowment of $53 billion.

LSU has an endowment of 700 million.

That's 53,000 billion.

And Harvard quite often allows kids who are sons and grandsons and granddaughters of people who graduated from that university to get in without the requisite test scores that would be required for somebody who didn't have a legacy at Harvard University.

So now that's going to be under attack.

So this opens a whole Pandora's box of where we go in higher education.

And of course, age old cliche.

Only time will tell.

That is true.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Hackberry Bay off the Barataria Waterway in Lafitte is home to a new artificial reef.

Honor of a beloved Louisiana legend.

Expert.

Angler and conservationist Theophile Bourgeois.

The fishing charter owner and popular personality died in a plane crash in 2019.

Tell Filter left a void in the Angler community, but his spirit is giving life to waterways.

He's so loved to fish.

As heavy machinery deposits, crushed limestone in Hackberry Bay to build up the two acre artificial reef underwater.

A fishing charter plane flies over.

It's a tribute to Captain Theophile Bourgeois, the third who championed a way of life and a community tied to these waters.

Hey ya█ll, Captain Theophile Bourgeois out here at the Chandelieur Islands catching some speckled trout today It was a poignant moment for the people in this flotilla of boats, Theophile█s, family and friends, including his son Theophile the 4th known as T.J..

In that moment, it's like, I know that's not my dad, but this is his plane.

This is him.

He's like, Now I feel like he's here.

He's like, blessing it.

Theophile founded his fishing charter company in 1992 and built a respected business and a fan following as a popular host of fishing shows.

Look at that ya█ll, beautiful redfish down on the bayou!

Theophile was also an accomplished inventor with a patent for an apparatus to retrieve oil booms in the aftermath of the 2010 BP oil spill.

But in 2019, tragedy struck when a seaplane piloted by Bourgeois crashed.

Two passengers aboard were rescued.

But the beloved captain lost his life.

It never fails.

People come to me with some story about how my dad touched their lives.

How lucky might have had a father who touched so many people's lives in that way.

T.J., a New Orleans artist and musician inherited the bourgeois fishing charter torch after his dad's death.

Two years later, it was tragedy yet again.

And Ida at this hour, still a dangerous Category four hurricane.

Category four Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday then tore a path of destruction to the heart of Louisiana's bayou country.

Hurricane Ida brought an 11 foot storm surge to the Lafitte area and left the bourgeois fishing charter lodge in ruins.

It was a legacy of his dad that drove T.J. to rebuild once again.

It's profound to me the amount of reward for all the labor of the past few years to have this moment, just three months after we opened to have an opportunity to have everybody here and say, hey, look, we're back.

The Bourgeois fishing charter story is just one example of pieces that are still being picked up.

Nearly two years since Ida's landfall, the Lafitte community is one that knows resiliency all too well.

I think when you make a decision to live here outside of levee protection in this unfortunately very overlooked place, everyone likes to enjoy this place, but it's very overlooked.

But I made a choice to plant my roots here.

We all made a choice to plant our roots here.

And that comes with a lot of hard work.

The artificial reef named in his father, Theophile Bourgeois's honor is pivotal to the rebuilding efforts going on in Jefferson Parish.

And it's really a symbol of coming back.

I mean, it really is from all levels.

You know, everybody wants to see, you know, homes coming back.

They want to see people bringing their families back, schools come back.

But we also need to make sure our marshes and our waterways and our habitats are coming back as well after a storm, especially like Ida.

Theophile█s Reef resides off the Barataria Waterway south of Lafitte, nurturing marine life, which in turn creates a prime fishing spot.

It's the 46th artificial reef created by the Coastal Conservation Association.

Look, Louisiana's losing marine habitat every day.

Oil rigs are being pulled out.

Our coast is eroding and CCA is trying to put back as much habitat as we can for the fish to thrive.

And artificial reefs like this benefit the entire ecosystem from bottom to top.

Oysters will attach to this reef.

Baitfish will come.

Other fish will come as well.

Theophile was a legendary angler, a legendary conservationist.

He was rated as one of the best captains in the world and unfortunately passed away way too soon.

He wanted the fishing industry to keep going and be good and all that.

And he had so many ideas.

And if you've looked around this place, it's all him.

I think that he was such an advocate and ambassador for this place, and I think not just for this place, but just for everything, like to take full advantage of the bountiful resources that this place offers.

Hurricane Ida brought devastation to a stretch of communities from Lafitte to Grand Isle.

The reef aims to attract anglers back to the waters of Hackberry Bay reviving the local fishing industry and the economy.

To have that symbiotic relationship where it's not just all take, take, take, what can you give back to ensure that your children and the generations following can have that same joy and that same lifestyle?

Because we are we are a dying heritage.

I'm just trying to carry that torch.

That's all I'm trying to do.

Keep it going for him.

It shows respect and it shows hope.

And one thing we have to make sure everybody realizes there is hope.

It's rare that you get to honor a friend and there is no better tribute to somebody that believed in what we did to build a reef in his name.

The Coastal Conservation Association in partnership with Jefferson Parish, Shell and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries funded the construction of the $300,000 artificial reef.

Madere and Sons donated labor, materials and equipment.

Louisiana Spotlight is a special that takes a deep dive into the issues unique to our state.

In May, we analyzed health equity and its prevalence in Louisiana.

Here's a snippet of it.

Take a look.

I'm Dr. Emily Price Haywood, system medical director for Ochsner Healthy State 2030 Initiative, as well as the Ochsner Xavier Institute for Health Equity and Research.

So Healthy State is your program.

You're the medical director.

Can you tell me a little bit about it?

What's your role?

It's the Healthy State Initiative, first announced in November 2020 in response to the longstanding history that we have in Louisiana of poor health outcomes.

According to the America Health Rankings, Louisiana has been number 49 or 50th for many, many years, meaning that the overall health of our state is very poor as a large health system.

We felt the responsibility to lead the initiative, to be a catalyst for change, to improve the overall health of the state with a goal of improving our state rankings over a ten year period between 2020 and 2030.

What obstacles have you run into trying to achieve that goal?

The health disparities that we see in the state of Louisiana and the overall poor health is not something that happened overnight.

It took decades and I would argue it took centuries to get us to where we are.

So this is a marathon, not a sprint.

And it's going to take a long time for us to change the dial.

But in order to do that work, we have to recognize that we as a health system cannot do it alone.

We have to do it in collaboration with other entities.

And so we've brought together a group of 35 organizations representing different sectors across different industries, not just health care, with a model of collective action for collective impact.

And that means recognizing that a lot of what drives the poor health outcomes is prior to the folks walking into the hospital system.

It's where you live.

It's where you work.

It's your circumstances that that drive your health outcomes.

And so in order for us to improve the state health rankings overall, we must step outside of the health system and address some of those other issues.

So for our specific inequities that we have in Louisiana, are those common do you see them in other states?

What makes us different?

Poverty is the number one factor that drives the poor health of the state.

Louisiana is a poor state.

We're a rural state.

We're a service industry type state.

A lot of what we experience in Louisiana is actually reflective of major portions of the South.

The phenomenon of the South, honestly, in my opinion.

I do believe that there is a legacy related to slavery because of the economics of that system.

So in the state of Louisiana, it's racial ethnic minorities who have a larger proportion of the poor.

It's also the rural parts of the state that have a disproportionate impact of of poverty being that that is the demographics of the state.

The legacy of the state economically and how things have evolved over time.

So that those groups who are disadvantaged in the past are still disadvantaged today.

That's why you see the disparities by these different groups, because it's the same structure that's been refurbished.

But the impact is poverty, lack of access, lack of education, lack of economic opportunities, which ultimately impacts our overall health and well-being.

So where do we go from here?

What do you what's the solution?

First and foremost, if you don't address policy.

Policy is the overarching structure that determines how all of us behave.

So you have to address that under policy.

You can find the rest of this program on our website at lpb.org.

Our Next Spotlight airs later this month, but this time, instead of health equity, we'll be focusing on the ever changing laws surrounding cannabis usage in our state.

So make sure you tune in.

And that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB any time, wherever you are with our LPB PBS App.

You can catch LPB news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

For everyone that Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc and I'm Kara St. Cyr until next time, that’s the state we’re in.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth B Zigler Foundation and the Zigler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.