DeSantis seeks to transform Sarasota's New College with conservative board takeover

Colleges and Universities A-Z New College of Florida
81

The plan also includes raising enrollment and improving graduation rates, which will lower the cost per degree.

NCF also does very poorly on the performance based funding and scorecard. The removing “woke” from campus and making it a “classical” liberal arts school gets all of the media attention, but it’s these metrics where NCF has to approve. The feeling is that NCF currently can’t recruit or retain students.

Based on the performance metrics, average wages for undergraduates has to approve, 2nd year retention has to approve, the number of Freshmen in the top 10% of graduating high school class has to approve, the two year graduation rates for CC transfer students has to approve, and the 6 year graduation rates for students awarded Pell grants (low SES students), has to approve.

Metric 1 - Percent of Bachelor’s Graduates Employed and/or Continuing their Education Further 1 Year after Graduation

Metric 2 - Median Average Wages of Undergraduates Employed 1 Year after Graduation

Metric 3 - Net Tuition & Fees per 120 Credit Hours

Metric 4 - Four Year Graduation Rates (Full-time FTIC)

Metric 5 - Academic Progress Rate (2nd Year Retention with GPA above 2.0) (NCF got a 1 out of 10 on this metric)

Metric 6 - Bachelor’s Degrees Awarded in Areas of Strategic Emphasis (includes STEM)

Metric 7 - University Access Rate (Percent of Undergraduates with a Pell Grant)

Metric 8b - Freshmen in Top 10% of Graduating High School Class (NCF got a 0 out of 10 on this metric)

Metric 9a - Two-Year Graduation Rate for FCS Associate in Arts Transfer Student (NCF got a 0 out of 10 on this metric)

Metric 9b - Six-Year Graduation Rate for Students who are Awarded a Pell Grant in their First Year (NCF got a 4 out of 10 on this metric).

Metric 10 - Board of Trustees’ Choice ( for NCF, they selected: Percent of FTIC Graduates Completing 3+ High-Impact Practices)

2 Likes
82

Exactly. It can not continue as currently structured. Maybe it is worth it to try a different model for a few years in the hopes of turning it around but I doubt that will work either, and it can close then.

1 Like
83

Students who choose New College of Florida are not going there for a vocational education.

What would you say to the student who attends Williams College and majors in Art History?

84

Employment outcomes may not be important to you, but they are to many potential applicants,and NCF poor outcomes may be depressing future applicants from applying.

The employment outcomes of NCF are not comparable to those of Williams, even in art history.

2 Likes
85

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Williams art history kid is going to Wall Street.

3 Likes
86

On our Williams tour they referred to the “Williams mafia” in art, given that 3 of the country’s major art museums are currently run by Williams’ grads. No, I’m not going to go look up which ones right now. Coming from Williams, you could make a career in art history.

In another thread, there was a discussion of USC film studies majors being encouraged to double major. Well, USC, UCLA, NYU might be the only places in the country where a film studies major might have a reasonable expectation of “making it” in the film business. Just like Julliard students are not studying business in their spare time, they are “all in” on their chance.

The handful of schools at the top of any field are not relevant comparable peers for the New College of Florida, which is not providing an elite experience in any area, to my knowledge.

4 Likes
87

Most Williams students are graduating within 4 years. The state isn’t paying for their education for 6 years.

If students are using NCF as a two year ‘starter college’ that isn’t how it was designed to be used. There is a community college nearby, and four other colleges in a consortium.

I think the state is entitled to re-evaluate the school and its value. It took the school over in 1975 as part of USF, but then USF spun it off in 2001. FAU has an honors college on a separate campus, but it doesn’t seem to have worked for USF, and it isn’t working as a stand alone honors college.

It doesn’t make sense that one college is getting such a disproportional amount of the higher education budget. If one public high school was getting 5x the budget of another per student, people would be outraged, especially if only 66% were graduating in 6 years.

It may be that the state can ‘save’ NCF, but I doubt it will be in the same format as it is currently operating.

6 Likes
88

I’d say, ‘stay for the MA and be curating at the Met in 5 years’.

2 Likes
89

Hampshire college offers admission to all New College students, at their current tuition cost

Hampshire College announced today its commitment to offer admission to all New College of Florida students in good standing and to match their current cost of tuition.

Hampshire College Offers Admission to Students at New College of Florida | Hampshire College.

6 Likes
90

I don’t understand this comment. If De Santis turns it into a Hillsdale-esque college, it’s still going to be a money pit. He is pretty transparent about his goal.

5 Likes
91

I have not seen DeSantis plan- if there is one. Perhaps he expects to recruit thousands of new applicants so as to expand it greatly. Or perhaps he expects to solidify its enrollment and try to sell it to a private institution. It is possible that his plan involves a fundamental restructuring so it is not a money pit.

92

Or it’s possible that his plan is simply a political statement.

(Though I agree that the state was spending more money than it should on NCF, so it makes sense to do something else - just not something costing taxpayers the same or close to the same amount of money.)

8 Likes
93

The plan is pretty clear, it’s to meet the expectations of the state legislature.

  1. Increase enrollment/applications/selectivity.
  2. Increase graduation rates
  3. Increase retention rates
  4. Increase post-college results (Avg salary of graduates, grad school enrollments, etc.).

If making it into a “Hillsdale-esque” college improves these results, then it’s a success. If not, then the legislature will end the school (likely by folding it into USF as an "honors’ program).

The state legislature will continue to fund the school, if they perceive it as a “jewel” in the system; a selective, “Public Liberal Arts College”.

3 Likes
94

NCF ran into two different crosswinds.

First, for years, it’s performance has been lacking, and the legislature has threaten to do “something” about it. That reach as peak in 2023.

The way performance based funding works (in Florida) is the school has to put some of it’s funding at risk. If it meets the goals, it gets it’s $ back, plus additional $ based on it actual performance. NCF poor performance is killing it’s funding, having the SUS making an exception to award it some of the additional funds (and the funds it had at risk).

Second, the Governor and state legislature have decided to take action against “WOKE” in the university system. NCF is an obvious target. It’s board was perceived as weak (compared to the other 10 or 11 state universities), hence why so many got replaced (you don’t see that at the other state schools, yet).

What I want to see is the actual changes to the liberal arts curriculum. Then, how does that impact freshman enrollment and retention.

This will all play out over the next few years.

3 Likes
95

Will be interesting to see what the ultimate shakeout of this is (assuming rescission of these pledges comes to fruition): New College of Florida takeover by Gov. Ron DeSantis risks donations

If your goal is to provide more secure financial and operational footing for an educational institution, and to get it to stop soaking up such a large amount of State resources, then it seems like installing political operatives with no academic experience in such a ham-handed and intentionally alienating way that your alumni donor base evaporates in a few weeks is kind of a bad idea. On the other hand, if the goal is not actually to methodically reposition the institution and patiently instill better governance and a change in academic focus, but rather to antagonize what you see as the right people and use the school as a plaything in your run for president, then I guess this would be a perfectly acceptable, perhaps even desired, outcome.

I suppose there’s a third option. A governor could say “Look, we know a change in direction and focus is hard, and donors vote with their pocketbooks. But we think this is important and that in the long-run, NCF needs to stand on its own fiscally, and our efforts and the changes being implemented have only that goal in mind. If and when we’re successful in getting it to that point, there will be more alumni, making more money and taking more pride in their school, and we think their donations will more than make up for a temporary drop.” Haha, I’ll be here all week, tip your waiters.

4 Likes
96

I’m sure some donors will be upset. However, I have my doubts about that $29 million in donations. It’s all anonymous donors and “estate planning”. How much would reach the foundation and when?

What we do know, is how NCF fund raising has been over the last several years. Since 2012, they get between $2M to $3M a year in donations. In 2012, they had total assets of $50M. In 2021 it was about $58M. Yearly revenue and expense for NCF’s Foundation jumps all over the place. I assume it’s driven by market volatility.

To put it in perspective, New College’s total operating expenditures this year were projected to be $51 million − including $31 million in salaries and benefits. That was before the additional $15 million increase put into the state budget.

In fact, last year, the state legislature budgeted $7.5 million for three capital projects at New College. This was the first time since 2017 that New College has been designated to receive Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funding.

Right now, having a better relationship with the state legislature is more important than donors. That’s one of the main reason’s Richard Corcoran is president, fund raising and improving the relationship with the legislature.

3 Likes
97

The problem with such an article is that it assumes no new donations will result from the new directions of the College.

2 Likes
98

This is pretty much what was done in the past and it didn’t work.

NCF started out as a small religious school. The school gave itself to the state, and the state combined it with USF. Not as the honors college, but as a liberal arts campus for USF. Then it went back to being a stand alone school (as NCF). There is still a USF campus in the area, and a community college, and there is some interaction (I think they share a library).

I think they are trying to figure out how to make it work financially. I don’t think it attracts students as an honors college. The honors college at UF is bigger than NCF, there is another stand alone honors campus if that’s the experience a florida high school student is looking for (FAU) or lots of other honors colleges, including at USF. Is NCF really a complement to the Florida higher ed system? Is it worth the money? I think the other schools do a better job educating Floridians, and are cheaper to run.

I think it will come down to why should these 600 students get such a high percentage of the higher ed budget when most of them don’t even stay thru graduation.

1 Like
99

Perhaps, although I sort of doubt there’s a large, heretofore untapped rightwing alumni base at New College of Florida that’s just been waiting for this sort of move. I’m not sure I’ve heard of many instances of non-alums of colleges or universities making large donations, either, unless they’ve got long-established relationships with a school and they’re in pursuit of specific goals (new Environmental Sciences school, new Biomedical Engineering facility, etc.) tied to their business area. And I’ve definitely never heard of that happening at a place like NCF. I suppose it’s possible there’s a Koch brothers allocation just waiting in the wings, but I don’t think it would be good journalistic practice to just blindly speculate on such a thing.

100

EDITED: Another thread already on Hampshire.