New College of Florida to acquire USF Sarasota-Manatee in deal that leading Democratic lawmaker says ‘reeks of grift’
A liberal arts college seized by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, and transformed into a model for conservative higher education is to triple in size after state Republicans engineered a hostile takeover of a rival university’s campus.
New College of Florida, which is controlled by DeSantis’s hand-picked board of trustees, will acquire the Sarasota-Manatee campus of the University of South Florida (USF) next month in a deal described by a leading Florida Democrat as “a grift”.
The transfer of the 32-acre, 2,000-student facility, which has a new six-story residential hall and $44m student center, will significantly expand the footprint of the 900-student New College that the governor has touted as a blueprint for his “anti-woke” agenda.
The transfer will proceed despite almost universal opposition from USF students and faculty, education leaders, and the local business community, who say popular, thriving programs including nursing, tourism and hospitality, will end.
This was a terrible seizure of the college to begin with (in case it being Desantis and Florida wasn’t enough of an indication).
They basically came in, fired a bunch of professors and canceled classes mid-program, shafted students who wanted to and had been attending, opened a ton of sports scholarship opportunities (despite the college not really having competitive teams), and restructured the senior dorms for the jocks just coming in. One student was told to just change their major after all their professors were fired.
So “anti-woke” takeover really meant cutting STEM programs and (as one official put it) increasing the testosterone levels on campus.
If you ever need to see a doctor you better hope they studied in a blue state (or Cuba).
The dude is a frustrated hitler too, the amount of corruption he is performing in Florida is insane. He might be competing with trump on how to be the worst hitler and evil person in power.
He expedited my exit from Florida. I don’t understand how the citizens couldn’t find anyone better than him to “serve.”
Well he just got rid of the state insurance right as global warming is going to devastate the state. You got out at a good time, it’s going to be hard to sell your home when people realize how that’s going to effect them.
How dare the leopards eat MY face!?
They brought in like 70 baseball players on sports scholarships and they don’t even have a baseball field. There’s something like 12 catchers.
I hope the students sue the daylight out of him