BATON ROUGE - LSU System President F. King Alexander gave lawmakers a bleak picture about the years of state budget cuts. He says faculty and students are getting poached by out-of-state colleges and per-student spending on the main campus has fallen to among the lowest of its peers.

Alexander's comments Wednesday to the House Appropriations Committee came ahead of another round of expected cuts to higher education. The LSU leader said it will be the 16th cut in nine years.

At LSU's main campus, Alexander says per-student spending is 46th out of the nation's 50 flagship universities. He says poorer states and smaller universities are spending more money per student than students are getting at LSU.

He said LSU is outperforming many of its peers, but that will get tougher with more cuts.