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# The Jaguar stirs
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/the-jaguar-stirs/
- Published: 2026-07-01T00:30:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-01T00:30:13.000Z
- Description: Enrollment has been growing at Southern, reversing a decline that threatened the university. New housing will be built soon.
- Author: Mukul Verma
- Tags: News

Southern University is building more on-campus housing because more students are showing up.

**Why it matters:** LSU is already a flywheel for the Baton Rouge economy. Southern’s growth gives North Baton Rouge more of that same energy: students, jobs, spending, construction and the chance to keep more young people here after they graduate.

Together, LSU and Southern give the parish a larger opportunity: educate more people, then persuade some of them to stay and build lives here.

**The details:** Southern recently cut the ribbon on two new residential buildings totaling 850 beds. 

One building is aimed at first- and second-year students. The other offers more apartment-style housing for upperclassmen and graduate students.

The Louisiana Public Facilities Authority played a central role in financing the project.

**The bigger picture:** Southern’s Baton Rouge campus spent years fighting enrollment decline. Then, about a decade ago, the university got more aggressive: more recruiters, more marketing and more alumni outreach.

It worked.

**By the numbers:** Southern’s Baton Rouge campus has added nearly 2,400 students over 10 years, with much of the growth occurring after 2020, per Southern University board documents. 

- Southern enrollment in fall 1995: 10,359, a high point.
- Low point: 6,408 in 2016.
- Enrollment in 2025: 8,908.

**The bottom line:** Southern’s growth is good for North Baton Rouge and good for the parish. That happened because leaders implemented an aggressive and smart strategy to reverse a decline that seemed likely to render the university irrelevant. 

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