New College of Florida, the liberal arts institution reshaped by Governor Ron DeSantis into a conservative education flagship, is set to absorb the University of South Florida's Sarasota-Manatee campus next month. The acquisition will nearly triple New College's student body and cement what critics call a troubling pattern of executive overreach.
The 32-acre USF campus currently serves 2,000 students and houses nursing, tourism, hospitality, and health care programs that anchor the regional economy. It features a new six-story residential hall and a $44 million student center. When folded into New College's roughly 900-student institution, the combined operation will reshape higher education in the region.
The transfer engineered little public fanfare. A proposal failed to advance through normal legislative channels earlier this year, but Republican operatives resurrected it through a conference committee and buried it in the final state budget awaiting the governor's signature. The maneuver bypassed standard debate and public scrutiny.
Opposition has been sweeping. USF students, faculty, local business leaders, education consultants, and Democratic lawmakers all condemned the acquisition. Lucie Lapovsky, a higher education consultant and signatory to a letter against the proposal, underscored the collision of missions.
"It makes no sense whatsoever in terms of access to higher education for students," Lapovsky said. "Sarasota is a big tourist area. We have lots of hotels and restaurants that employ graduates of that program. We have several hospitals, and graduates of USF health programs work there."
USF President Moez Limayem acknowledged the upheaval while promising continuity. Existing programs will continue through a four-year "teach-out" period before closure. "Our real strength has been, and always will be, our people," he wrote. Student leaders echoed concerns about lost affordability and access. Dennis Kukharenko, the student body's lieutenant governor, told faculty in February that removal of the campus "removes an opportunity to get a degree affordably."
Fentrice Driskell, leader of Florida's House Democratic caucus, accused Republicans of bullying the state's higher education system. "This is a governor who has expanded and tested the limits of executive power in ways that I don't think anybody would have ever foreseen," she said, characterizing the acquisition as a "grift."
Money tells another story. The DeSantis administration has showered New College with resources. Richard Corcoran, appointed as New College president in 2024 with no prior higher education experience, commands a $1.2 million salary package, four times that of his predecessor. Yet an efficiency study from November found New College spends nearly $500,000 per degree, vastly outpacing the next-highest cost among Florida's state universities.
"It doesn't even pass the governor's own Doge exercise," Driskell noted, referencing efficiency standards. "There is so much waste here."
New College has undergone a seismic ideological overhaul since DeSantis claimed control through his board appointments. The progressive institution, once known for its LGBTQ+ community, announced in September that it would commission a statue of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist. In 2024, photographs of hundreds of discarded library books went viral after the college purged its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, installed as a trustee by DeSantis, declared the college was "throwing out the trash."
Corcoran has insisted New College operates without political bias, though its transformation paints a different picture. His statement on the USF acquisition promised "care and intentionality" but did not address what happens to USF programs after the teach-out period ends.
Lapovsky expressed faint hope that a new governor or legislature might reverse course. "I hope a new governor or legislature might undo this, but I have no idea," she said. DeSantis will leave office in January due to term limits. "It's a tremendous loss to Sarasota and Manatee counties, and anyone who voted for it should be totally ashamed of themselves."
Author James Rodriguez: "A governor weaponizing state power to reshape higher education for political ends, then hiding the deed in a budget bill, is exactly the kind of institutional rot that erodes public trust in government."
Comments