Manny Diaz Jr. (Florida’s Commissioner of Education) response:
This is a blatant lie. As of today, Florida has 4,776 vacancies which is 1.3 on average per school. In fact, our vacancies are nearly 10% lower than this time last year.
The @FloridaEA should cite accurate methodology before they replicate this false narrative again next year.
https://twitter.com/CommMannyDiazJr/status/1691468598366076928
It’d be interesting to compare the numbers and % to Fall 2021, Fall 2019, and Fall 2018, as well as to other populous states (CA, TX, NYS?) and their demographics, plot the trends.
To get back to NCF, a core curriculum was announced but I cannot find anything about it.
More NCF Updates
Apparently, the housing issues linked to a large freshman class, most of whom are athletes who will be housed together in jr/sr housing, had not been properly anticipated.
And the curriculum is still in flux one week from the start of classes.
Wouldn’t NCF’s accreditation agency (SACSCOC) have to step in at some point? I expect there will be student lawsuits too…families are paying money for substandard offerings which is not what NCF markets.
The Florida Education Association explained how they came up with their #s. Manny Diaz Jr did not.
When considering whether or not to value his opinion, remember that Manny Diaz Jr. questioned the need for all vaccines for students (not just Covid vaccines).
That is insane! Enough players for 2-3 D-III baseball teams with no fields, no program and no conference? What are they gonna do, bus them up to IMG to play against high schoolers? Where are they going to expand to build a baseball complex, much less a track, soccer fields, basketball arena, etc.? I just looked at a map, and see that the school’s surrounded by a residential neighborhood, the Ringling estate, the ocean and an international airport. It takes at least 5 acres for a full-sized baseball field with no surrounding stadium or other infrastructure. I don’t even see a gym on campus.
I can’t imagine the “recruiting” process here. No coach, no fields, no uniforms, no website. Just someone from the administration office scouring the state to find high school players with no chance at even midlevel Division III college ball and without the academics to get into a LAC, and calling them up offering $10k off tuition? That has to have been the pitch. I don’t care how unsophisticated a kid and their family might be, they’re at least going to google “NCF baseball” and ask some basic questions. Like, “Can I talk to the coach?” (who was evidently was just hired 4 months ago). No kids with legit collegiate athletic prospects are going to sign up for this.
Would not be surprised if this is all partially intended to just avoid a falloff in applications and matriculation. As MYOS has noted, kids with averages of 22 ACT scores are not ready for a classical humanities institution of higher learning. I could see the marketing appeal of longterm rebranding the school through a thriving athletics department (New College of Florida - we’re Middlebury without the snow!), but this seems like going about it all bassackwards. That takes time, money and land.
Exactly. They are offering kids a chance to go to college, and if they can throw a ball and swing a bat, they are in. What if they can’t bat? Still in. At this point, it is an open enrollment school. Florida probably has 30-40 schools with baseball teams. These are students that have no hope of making a D1, D2, D3 or NAIA team. They are recruiting (accepting) 60 so that they can have 2 teams, and because they know most of them will drop out. Who will they play? They will scrimmage other schools in the area like Ave Maria, the community colleges
It is likely they will use a local high school or even a rec center field to play. My daughter’s school had that deal with the local high school and the school even changed the emblem on the field to a P, which covered the high school’s mascot (Pirates) and the college’s (Panthers). There were also 3 ball fields there for baseball and softball teams. The schools were about 3 miles apart. The boys team preferred to play on campus with a grass field, portable bleachers, no press box, no locker rooms, so they didn’t use the stadium. Her school did have an indoor gym, an amazing pool, and a varsity athletics building, and I think a soccer stadium, but other sports played elsewhere.
We are friends with a veteran college counselor who has been the past president of one the largest associations of professional college counselors. She told us that her organization was having its annual event in Florida this year and that a number of counselors were going to boycott the event because of the location. Also, she is based in the Northeast, and it was her first admission cycle when she had two parents tell her no to Florida because of what the governor was doing in the state.
Tell that to the 500,000 people moving to Florida every year
Individuals have been boycotting Florida, Texas, Louisiana etc for many years. There are a lot of parents on here who crossed off states because of abortion laws, gay rights issues, other social issues. It probably hurts the smaller schools (like NCF) much more than it hurts UF, UT, Rice, UMiami.
My guess is that the reason that Florida/Texas, etc. schools are crossed off is for the benefit of the students, and not so much to hurt the schools. In other words, many families don’t want their kids (or their kids friends and schoolmates) to be subject to these draconian measures.
I think it may be some years before we see how much, if any, impact the new laws affect the population of FL. Moves do take time to plan and put into effect.
Exactly…the counselor conference reference above booked the event several years ago, and changing it at this point would cost high six figures in lost deposits and such, which is just not an option for this organization. Going forward, I imagine there will be fewer orgs booking sites in Florida or Texas.
But if there are other students who will take their places at those schools, it doesn’t hurt the big schools UF, FSU, UMiami, UT, Rice still have record applications. For the smaller schools who may have plenty of room for OOS students, the politics of the state may hurt. If you follow the UF threads, people are dying to get in and others warn them of the politics and they still want to go to UF.
I think people will still be having conventions in Orlando and sports tournaments at Disney and spring break in Daytona. cost plays a big part in it and Florida and Texas are cheap.
We’re in the Northeast. Five years ago when our oldest was looking we wouldn’t have thought twice of not going to Florida but I think now we would.
Maybe in the context of Florida, it means learning the “lost cause” history of the “war of northern aggression” that was all about generic states’ rights, along with how being enslaved meant that one could learn valuable job skills like cotton picking?
Listened to an interesting episode of “This American Life” called ‘The Florida Experiment’ recently on a road trip. It touched on higher education at the last segment and talked about how lots of conservatives moved to Florida during the pandemic because of DeSantis.
The size of New College would not have been a deterrent for my D22 but the Florida part definitely was but not only politically but also just cause she hates the heat!
Considering who/where it’s coming from it’s no surprise they are preying on the uninformed and then not following through with their promises.
Also, Gov. DeSantis had a tweet about the largest freshman class ever and the end of useless majors.
Several hundred New College students will be living in hotels for awhile….