...firms and construction companies are donating time and materials to make vacant space into a new studio for the group.

Many students headed to their home states and registered as visiting students at Cornell, Pratt, Columbia University, Parsons School of Design, University of Southern California, and many more; tuition is paid to Tulane. > Adam Porter is a fourth-year student from Warrenton, Va., who has started classes of the University of Virginia without his supplies and computer, the condition of which he is uncertain. "I won't know what happened to my things for a few months," he says, "as I don't know how bad the flooding was there." He's taking a light semester, he says, to allow for catching up on his late start.

For other students, the situation was more dire, says Ken Fridley, civil-environmental department chair at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, a coordinator of the fast-moving industry-academic network that is finding and placing displaced students in new locations across the U.S. He says he received e-mails from UNO students who lost homes and possessions or were evacuated into out-of-state shelters where belongings were stolen and future prospects remain uncertain.  

New schools are fast taking in the displaced, even with tuition issues still unclear and controversial. Many programs have waived admission requirements and costs. "It’s just the right thing to do," says Warren Waggenspack, associate engineering dean at Baton Rouge-based Louisiana State University, which has taken in 100 students. LSU had added lab sections and classroom space and guaranteed that visiting students receive transferable credit. "It’s been crowded, but orderly and efficient," he says.   

There has been some upset at already at-capacity schools such as California’s public university system, but others are embracing engineering students, whose numbers are dwindling. "We feel an obligation to help however we can," says Jean Landa Pytel, assistant dean at Penn State University’s College of Engineering.  

But despite the quick response, some engineering students worry whether they will graduate on time. "There’s no way to check Tulane online to get the syllabus and course descriptions because there’s nothing running," says Alex Maller, a Texas-born chemical engineering junior, who will attend his home state school in Austin. “I have friends that are taking completely different classes than they would be taking normally.”

As the United States continues to lag behind countries such as China, India, Russia and Europe in graduating engineers, administrators say that helping these students get through school is a priority. “The nation needs students in technological fields,” says Priscilla Nelson, provost and senior vice President for academic affairs at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, which also offered admission to displaced students. “Every student is really valuable. It’s hard to recruit them; anyone who has chosen it is precious.”  

Others worry about the fate of financial aid. Many engineering students at high-cost Tulane are on 40 to 50% scholarship, says Vijay Gopu, head of its civil engineering department. Twenty-year-old Justin LaPoint, a civil engineering sophomore from New York City who is focused on construction management, fears that his full-ride scholarship to Tulane will be dropped if the university suffers tremendous damage and repair costs. In addition to her scholarship at Tulane, Stein estimates she lost between $500 to $1000 in textbooks at her New Orleans apartment, although she considers the sum “very little in comparison to what other people will lose.”

Gopu does not expect major disruptions in financial arrangements. He adds that faculty still will be paid and many are accepting new research and teaching positions elsewhere. Gopu will remain in the area to prepare for the expected return of students in the spring since the campus was not flooded seriously. "But we are hostage to what is happening around the city," says Gopu. He says Tulane must alert students by November on the school’s 2006 status.  

LSU's Waggenspack, however, is hoping for the best. “It will be an interesting semester, to say the least, but we will move on,” he says. “Engineers are supposed to be adaptable. I have students who are now motivated and want to go back to New Orleans and make a difference.”

In light of their experience with hurricane Katrina, many displaced engineering students from a variety of disciplines have found a different focus: applying their education to restore the city.

“Being a civil engineer, I feel strangely obligated to go back to New Orleans and help rebuild,” said Stein, who is set to graduate in 2006 and intends to put her plans with law school on hold. “I was considering the Peace Corps, but it seems silly to go abroad to help people when your own city is in such a terrible condition.”

LaPoint, who volunteered to help local impoverished New Orleans communities this past summer, also wishes to apply his education to relief efforts. Offutt says he and his fraternity brothers considered taking a semester off school to join Habitat for Humanity and help build houses in New Orleans. Maller, who’s kept track of his friends through blogs and online communities such as facebook.com, says he has many friends who plan to do the same. And although students from Tulane are scattered throughout the country, many share the same desire: they can’t wait to get back. “I left my heart in New Orleans,” Stein says.