Displaced Students Return To La. for 2nd College Try

For Freshmen Who Fled Katrina, Feelings Are Mixed on Leaving Schools in D.C. Region

On Sunday, Florence Farris left her parents' home in the District and flew to Louisiana to start college -- again.

The day before her first class at Loyola University New Orleans in August, Farris was evacuated to a shelter in Baton Rouge. A week later, she was going through orientation at Georgetown University for a semester as a visiting student. And now she's back at Loyola, where classes resumed yesterday with a scaled-back staff and budget.

She is one of hundreds of New Orleans college students who were taken in at Washington area schools that scrambled to accommodate Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Now most of the students are returning to the South, trying to start over, much like the hurricane-damaged communities and their universities.

Some Gulf Coast campuses have patched up flooded buildings; some have found makeshift classroom space. But it won't be until later this semester, when schools see how much money they get for rebuilding -- and just how many of the tens of thousands of displaced students return -- that they'll really know what's ahead.

For Farris, it's an easy leap of faith. "Once the students come back, a lot of life is going to come back into the city," she said.

But some students aren't so sure, worrying -- along with their parents -- that their health, safety or the quality of their education would be at risk if they go back.

Some students uprooted by Katrina fell in love with their new campuses last semester or found themselves unexpectedly at their first-choice school. That's what happened to Ben Segal, a student from New Orleans who settled for Tulane University in his home town when he didn't get into the University of Virginia. He started classes at U-Va. after the hurricane, and in the past semester made close friends, pledged a fraternity and enjoyed the most challenging class of his life: single-variable calculus, which almost took him down.

In the fall, he signed a petition, and student government leaders asked U-Va. administrators to let freshmen displaced by Katrina transfer in.

Spokeswoman Carol Wood said the university was very clear when it took in the 140 students that they were expected to return to their original schools when they could.

Most Washington area colleges set strict policies for the visiting students, limiting transfers and not charging tuition. At most schools, not more than a dozen are expected to remain, although that number could be higher at Howard University, which took in 115 students and encouraged them to go back but waived tuition for the spring.

Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education said university administrators don't want to be seen as poaching students from the hobbled Gulf Coast schools.

"Not too many operations in the city have as much economic clout as the university," said Professor Richard Teichgraeber, who returned to Tulane from Washington and Lee University in the fall. He found a quiet New Orleans without its clattering streetcars, whole neighborhoods dark and a campus waiting for its students to return.