Tulane University Cancels Fall Semester

NEW ORLEANS

Tulane University canceled its fall semester last week because of Hurricane Katrina and encouraged its students to take classes at others schools while New Orleans tries to clean up from the flooding.

Across town, the University of New Orleans campus appeared to be about two-thirds above water and the university said it planned to have Internet classes ready by October and satellite campuses open as soon as it could.

Dillard University said it wasn't ready to give up on the semester either but officials were still considering how to proceed.

The hurricane left as many as 100,000 college students in the New Orleans area reconsidering their fall semester as conditions in the hard-hit city worsened, according to the American Council on Education. Officials said it likely would be months before New Orleans was functioning again.

Several schools already have offered to take in displaced Gulf Coast college students.

To help the students and their universities, the American Council on Education announced guidelines last week that reflect the financial fears of the waterlogged Gulf Coast schools that don't want to lose their students for good.

The statement released by the higher education group asked that the schools taking displaced Gulf Coast students in enroll them as visitors rather than transfers. It also asked that they not charge tuition to students who already paid fall tuition. For those who haven't paid, it said the schools should charge the same tuition as the students' original schools and send the money to those schools.

Many colleges already had offered to accept students without charging them extra, though the financial details of the offers have not all been clear.

The hurricane has left officials at many of the New Orleans-area colleges struggling to communicate with the outside world.

Tulane and the University of New Orleans both turned to the Internet to announce their plans last week.