Assault on higher education

The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun: Given recent events it is difficult to be optimistic about the future of public higher education in general and the University of Florida in particular.

First Gov. Rick Scott signed a new state budget that cut $300 million in state university spending. Then he signed a bill to create an expensive new “polytechnic” university that will surely cannibalize the resources of existing institutions. Then he vetoed a bill that would have allowed UF and Florida State to make up for crippling state budget cuts with tuition rates higher than state law currently allows.

Scott promises that, somehow, all of this will usher in a golden age of higher education innovation; an opportunity to “begin creating a more exceptional higher education system that is well organized and focused on creating opportunities that benefit all Floridians.”

Rubbish.

The bottom line is that this Legislature has no intention of paying for a quality higher education system and Scott has no intention of passing the burden of steadily eroding state support onto students.

Florida’s current political leadership has all but abandoned state universities to their own devices. Until Floridians elect more enlightened leadership, university presidents must be prepared to withstand a period of fiscal retrenchment of uncertain duration.