Saturday, March 24, 2012

Florida Government Turns its Back on Public Universities (Except for One) - All Gov

The Florida legislature decided last week to cut funding for the state’s public universities by $300 million next year–even as it agreed to spend money on one powerful member’s plan to establish a new university in his home county. Such cuts are nothing new to Florida, which already spends the least in the nation per capita on higher education. Since the onset of the Great Recession in 2007, Florida has cut funding for higher education by $544 million, or about one-third, even as enrollment increased by more than one-third, from 286,755 to 383,629, and tuition was raised by about one-quarter.