The panel's report is due by Feb. 12 to the Board of Regents.

Higher-education funding accounts for a third of the state's discretionary spending. With budget shortfalls projected to top $900 million next year and $1.9 billion a year later, that puts colleges at risk for deep cuts. The Tucker Commission was pitched as a way to find targeted ways to cut higher education without irreparably damaging the schools.

Public colleges are vulnerable to budget cuts because they have few pools of state money protected either by state law or state constitution. The schools were cut nearly $120 million this year -- about a 7 percent drop in state funding -- to help balance the state's $28 billion-plus budget.

The 13-member commission includes national and regional higher education experts, two Jindal appointees, two legislative appointees, the chairman of the Board of Regents and the heads of the four university systems who are nonvoting members.

After introductions, the commission got a crash course in Louisiana's budget woes. The state's income has declined amid a drop in oil and gas prices, the national recession and a list of tax breaks lawmakers have doled out in the last few years.

Ray Stockstill, director of management and budget in Jindal's Division of Administration, said the state is estimated to be short $939 million of what it needs to continue the current services and meet inflationary costs in the 2010-11 fiscal year that begins in July 2010.

He said that is projected to worsen to a $1.9 billion shortfall a year later, when the federal stimulus money plugged into Louisiana's budget falls away and the state's Medicaid match rate shrinks.