‘Very beneficial.’ Why Gov. DeSantis says New College should get USFSM’s campus
Gov. Ron DeSantis praised the upcoming transfer of the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida.
When speaking about New College’s transformation — and much of the surrounding criticism — DeSantis said during a Wednesday press conference in Bradenton that the USF deal will significantly help New College grow as the campus continues to change under new leadership.
Opposition from USF supporters mounted for months before the bill was first included in a draft budget DeSantis published in December.
State legislators failed to pass a separate bill for the proposal, and it was instead pushed through with the state budget that is still waiting for DeSantis’ approval. DeSantis said he plans to have the budget finalized in the next week.
The deal will transfer all of USFSM’s physical assets — including a new on-campus dormitory, STEM facility and other campus buildings — to New College. New College will also take on the debt that USF acquired for the $44 million dormitory.
“If you look at the USF campus that they’re going to get, they’re going to have a really, really significant continuous footprint,” DeSantis said. “This is going to be something that’s going to be very beneficial for them from an infrastructure perspective.”
DeSantis defends New College expenses, changes
DeSantis also defended New College’s expansion and changes that developed under new leadership he largely influenced.
In 2023, DeSantis appointed six members to New College’s Board of Trustees, including conservative activist Christopher Rufo. The new board — supported by DeSantis and new President Richard Corcoran — pushed more conservative views on the public liberal arts college.
“There’s some people that think that they had a right to own New College and use New College to pursue their ideological agenda,” DeSantis said. “We believe in education, not indoctrination…There were some students that didn’t like (the change), because, in fairness to them, they signed up when it was more like a Marxist commune.”
DeSantis said New College’s expansion before the USFSM deal included “one-shot capital improvements,” which he used as his main defense against critics saying New College spends too much per student.
“Now they have a good path,” DeSantis said about New College. “The legislature provided a lot of funding, because the campus had been neglected for a long time, so you’ve had big time amounts of funding to go in to make really significant improvements to the physical campus.”
An audit of Florida’s state university system, produced by the Board of Governors, showed that it cost New College $494,715 per degree in fiscal year 2024. That’s more than triple what it costs any other state college or university in Florida, with the next closest being Florida Polytechnic University at $154,213 per degree.
“Anytime someone tries to say that somehow they’re getting so much more per student, and somehow inefficient…they’re deliberately either ignoring or lying about the fact that this was kind of a moment in time where we made the decision, we’re either going to fish or cut bait on this,” DeSantis said about the capital expenses.
If signed into law, the USFSM campus transfer to New College will take effect starting July 1.
