Greg Hilburn Updated 2:59 p.m. CT Jan. 9, 2020

Louisiana's top higher education board postponed adopting penalties for universities violating admissions standards and delayed spiking a potential northern Louisiana dental school after one member said the region "has to grovel for crumbs."

Louisiana's Board of Regents met Thursday in Baton Rouge, where members also approved a cloud computing degree at Grambling State University, the first at a historically black university and praised GSU President Rick Gallot's leadership.

The amendments to the admissions policy were prompted by former LSU President King Alexander's decision in 2018 to adopt a "holistic" admissions policy less reliant on ACT and SAT scores.

"It all came out of a hotbed that was stirred up a couple of years ago," said Regent Randy Ewing of Ruston. "I support deferring until next month until this is clearer."

Regents Chairman Marty Chabert concurred, saying, "I want everyone to be comfortable" before the board deferred action until the board's February meeting.

“The policy improvements proposed retain the Regents’ steadfast commitment to have students admitted where they can be most successful,” Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed said. “We undertook a thoughtful review of this issue and I am pleased with the collaborative process to date, but we want to ensure everyone is comfortable with the final policy we will present next month.”

In 2018 LSU began placing more emphasis on recommendation letters, personal essays and activities outside the classroom for admissions, a move critics said lowered standards and diminished LSU's stature as a state flagship university.

Alexander is taking over as Oregon State's president later this year.

Louisiana's regents set standards for all of the state's university boards and their schools. Some exceptions for minimum admissions standards are already allowed, but LSU exceeded that number.

But there are no consequences or penalties fro violating the admissions standards. The proposed amendments would allow the regents to ultimately withhold funding for universities that exceed the allowed number of exemptions to the minimum admissions policy.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City, requested the board postpone action on a study that found there isn't a shortage of dentists in 20 northern Louisiana parishes and recommended against starting a new dental school in the region.

Peacock and Sen. Greg Tarver, D-Shreveport, authored Senate Resolution 190 that requested the dental school study for northern Louisiana.

"LSU has addition information that wasn't included in the study and I want the board to be completely informed before making a final decision," Peacock said.

Regent Wilbert Pryor of Shreveport said he doesn't believe northern Louisiana gets the same consideration as Baton Rouge and New Orleans, saying the region has to "grovel for crumbs."

Louisiana's only dental school is located at LSU Health Sciences Center-New Orleans.

LSU also operates a medical school in Shreveport and northern Louisiana's two safety net hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe.

More: No new dental school needed for northern Louisiana

More: Louisiana higher ed board considers penalties for violating college admissions standards

The study did note the biggest number of northern Louisiana dentists are located in the region's population centers of Bossier Parish (25), Caddo (153), Lincoln (15) and Ouachita (80), while there is limited access to dentists in rural parishes. Richland and Franklin are the only other parishes with at least 10 dentists.

East Carroll, Madison, Red River and Tensas each have only one practicing dentist, while Bienville, DeSoto and Jackson parishes each have only two dentists.

The regents agreed to revisit the dental school study after more information is considered. 

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1