Florida spends about $115M+ a year on the FRA grants (2015-2016). Including the FRA grants, the state fund/spend about $142M+ a year for Private Colleges. I don’t necessary have an issue with this, but it’s an interesting footnote.
It looks like Florida may be significantly increasing funding, over the next two years.
For years, state funding for public universities around the country has been decreasing. At the same time — as every student and parent knows — tuition and fees have been going up, making the cost of higher education much harder for families to bear.
This sorry trend has reached the point, in fact, where students pay more of the cost of public university than the states do, according to the Government Accounting Office.
That’s why it’s great that Joe Negron, the incoming state Senate president, is making a priority of adding $1 billion over two years to Florida’s university system. The Republican from Stuart just finished a whirlwind four days of visiting all 12 of the system’s campuses to get a first-hand look at the problems facing students and educators across the state.
His goal, he said Thursday at his last stop, Florida Atlantic University’s campus in Boca Raton, is more ambitious than simply making up for years of tight funding. He wants to elevate Florida’s “good” university system to a “great” one — raising it to elite, national status, like the universities of Virginia, North Carolina, Texas and Michigan.
http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/editorial-negrons-smart-move-in-seeking-1-billion-/nq9t4/