Cuts to the Florida budget could hit higher education hard - Brian Bandell, South Florida Business Journal

With the state’s budget for the coming year projected to be down about 15 percent, universities are bracing for the next round of cuts. This would hit not just public universities, but students at private, nonprofit universities who get Florida Resident Access Grants (FRAG).... The FRAG reduction was negated this year by a decline in student enrollment from the initial estimate, said Ed H. Moore, president of the Independent Colleges & Universities of Florida. But, he’s worried that another cut could force private university students to shoulder more of the financial burden.... The chairwoman of the Senate’s Higher Education Appropriation Committee, Lynn filed measures calling for sales taxes on Internet sales and bottled water. She said raising the cigarette tax should be considered. “I’m getting extremely uncomfortable with the cuts,” said Lynn, a former teacher. “In universities, you are losing research efforts and your best professors, and cutting your top programs. Tuition increases will probably have to come, but that will be hard on people who don’t have jobs and can’t make a decent living right now.”