Tell Florida Legislature to reject New College merger | Letter to the editor

I was pleased to see the strong support of local legislators for New College’s continued independence.

As a former Bradenton Herald copy editor and former longtime Manatee County resident, I can attest that it was New College that first brought me to Florida. I do understand that New College’s small size makes it a unique challenge for the Florida Legislature’s budgeting process. But New College allows Florida to lay claim to something that few of the 50 states have: an independent honors college that enables students to get the experience of a small liberal arts college at the cost of a public university education. At a time when education is so expensive, we need more — not fewer — independent public liberals arts colleges in the United States.

In the late 1990s, when I was president of the student government of New College (which was then a unit of the University of South Florida), I was part of a self-study of New College by a committee formed by stakeholders throughout the state university system. Among the committee’s conclusions was that New College needed more autonomy, not less, to improve. That conclusion has surely been proven true over the last few decades since independence was achieved in 2001.

More than ever, New College has a strong national profile, strong recruiting, and a devoted base of alumni. The current proposal in the Legislature — which would merge New College with a university at the other end of the state — would endanger all of those gains.

I hope all Bradenton Herald readers will join me in urging the Legislature to reject this proposal.

Matthew Grieco

Brooklyn, N.Y.

This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Tell Florida Legislature to reject New College merger | Letter to the editor."