BATON ROUGE — Another wave of power outages hit Southern University’s campus as students prepare for midterms and the school heads into Homecoming week.

Parents were forced to pick up their kids from Southern Lab on the university campus while students walked past buildings without power during another outage.

According to students, the repeated disruptions are taking a heavy toll on their education.

"I'm just seeing a lot of students can't get their work done. I mean, we've been going to school for what, it's only been about a month and a half now, and we've had power outages. It's been hard to get everything done in class, get everything that you need to get done," one student said.

"A lot of different people, you come here, you know, you come, it's a historically black college, and we expect that our power or stuff will be on,” another student added. “This is our third or fourth time. We have midterms next week.”

The latest outage comes just days after Chancellor John Pierre told WBRZ that blackouts were behind the university, pointing to scheduled maintenance meant to resolve the issue.

"We're doing everything possible to solve a problem that was unexpected at the time it came, but we have done everything possible to make sure the students don't have any interruption in their academic learning process," Pierre said.

However, that planned maintenance outage was postponed, and the grid failed again shortly after.

Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis said student frustrations are valid.

"They're absolutely valid, and I think the students and the parents need to call the institution and the board and say, you must prioritize this. It is unacceptable, I think, for us to see a football game continue to go on," Lewis said.

Lewis said Southern's aging electrical infrastructure is behind the outages.

Pierre also noted that Southern faces roughly $1.5 million in deferred maintenance needs and has already spent about $2 million on campus-wide repairs while seeking additional funding.

State officials have also been discussing the issue. "My office, the governor's office, the mayor's office, the state legislature, our congressmen — we have met multiple times with the leadership, and I think now is the time for them to really be forceful and explain to the public what is going on and where they are going to make these investments and when. The drip, drip, drip solution I don't think works anymore," Lewis said.

Lewis said he wants the state to make Southern's electrical grid a top funding priority. "We are looking around for federal resources to ensure that we can make the needed investments, and I'm going to push the state legislature to fund Southern's electrical grid as a number one priority in this upcoming budget, because we know if students cannot go to class, they cannot pass," Lewis said.

Southern has not yet said whether the disruption will affect Homecoming activities. The university says it will update the public if there are any changes to campus operations, classes or Homecoming events.