Listen to the article
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Florida lawmakers forged a budget agreement on Sunday that would slash tens of millions of dollars from the state’s top universities, including University of Florida and Florida State University.
The budget bill would eliminate a pot of funding for the state’s “preeminent universities,” a designation for Florida’s top-performing public research institutions. Last year’s budget contained $40 million for preeminent universities. Florida’s Senate had offered $100 million for the next fiscal year, but it ultimately signed onto a bill with none.
The funding cuts weren’t the only higher education shakeup in the budget agreement. It would also transfer the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida, a move favored by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who backed the public liberal arts institution’s conservative transformation.
A final vote on the budget is expected Friday.
Florida’s ‘preeminent’ universities lose key funding source
In recent years, Florida has set aside substantial pots of money for public universities qualifying as preeminent, a designation first created in 2013.
To gain that status, universities must meet 11 out of 12 statutory standards. Those include high national rankings, a four-year graduation rate of 60%, and at least 400 doctoral degrees awarded annually, among other metrics.
Today, four state universities qualify: University of Florida, Florida State University, University of South Florida and Florida International University. University of Central Florida said last year that it had met the standards and expected to be formally recognized with preeminent status in June.
Two years ago, preeminent universities shared an extra $100 million from the state budget that they could use toward things like faculty hiring and student recruitment. Last year, lawmakers cut that figure by more than half. And the next fiscal year, if the budget passes and becomes law, those funds will be nil.
“Look, the institutions can still call themselves preeminent universities without the funding being there,” Florida Rep. Demi Busatta, the Republican chair of the House higher ed budget subcommittee, told reporters, according to the news site Florida Politics. “That’s obviously something that throughout the years has sometimes been there and sometimes there hasn’t been.”
New College’s takeover of University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus
The budget agreement also calls for New College to take over the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus by July 1, a property transfer that has been in the making for more than a year as some state political leaders look to expand New College’s reach and help it grow.
Under the bill, New College could begin using the property after the transfer. However, USF students accepted before July 1 would be given priority to use the Sarasota-Manatee campus’s classrooms and other educational spaces so that they can complete their studies, for at most the next four academic years. USF would retain $22 million in state operating funds so it can teach out its students at the Sarasota-Manatee campus, according to the university’s president.
Meanwhile, the law would stipulate that USF students accepted after the July cutoff cannot designate Sarasota-Manatee as their primary campus. At the same time, it doesn’t bar USF and New College from coming to some sort of agreement to share the campus space.
A USF FAQ page, last updated on Tuesday, notified Sarasota-Manatee campus employees that they will not need to relocate by the July 1 date, as most of them are expected to work there while students are taught out. But the university doesn’t specify whether those employees will be relocated in the future.
“More details will be shared as plans are developed,” the page states. ”If relocation is required in the future, USF is committed to providing support to our employees who need it.”
In a message Tuesday, USF President Moez Limayem directly addressed the uncertainty around the campus transfer.
“My commitment is that USF will still be a strong partner for the Sarasota-Manatee community,” Limayem said. “We will reach out to our stakeholders to work together to determine how our university can continue to help the region’s growth.”
Since 2023, New College has played a key role in DeSantis’ efforts to transform higher education in the state. After the Republican governor remade the college’s board and installed a longtime political ally as president, the institution dismantled its once-robust diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as well as its gender studies department, among other changes favored by conservatives.
