Encouraging signs from the Florida legislature: it looks like both the House and Senate have agreed to fully and permanently fund Bright Futures. This means free tuition to UF for the top tier of Bright Futures students. Not a done deal yet but it’s getting closer.
http://floridapolitics.com/archives/257649-house-senate-start-negotiations-tighter-budget
Good news, fingers crossed. The second tier is the one I thought they might scrape increases to stay on budget. Supposedly moving them up to 75% coverage costs much more because more students qualify. While it’s helpful for those students it probably doesn’t translate into higher caliber kids staying in state; part of the goal of BF increases to top tier. I can see them raising the bar to qualify in future years if funding becomes difficult.
The Florida Excellence in Higher Education Act of 2018 today saw final passage in both the Florida Senate and the Florida House of Representatives. The legislation will now be sent to Florida Governor Rick Scott.
Bright Futures Florida Academic Scholars award at 100% tuition and fees plus $300 spring and fall terms
Bright Futures Florida Medallion Scholar award at 75%
Expands Benacquisto Scholarship to OOS students
Campus Free Expression: Public colleges are prohibited from setting up “free-speech” zones.
Funding for recruiting and retaining top faculty.
Funding to support Professional and Graduate programs.
A key performance metric has been changes from a 6 year graduation rate to a 4 year graduation rate.
Has the Govenor indicated his position on this bill? I know he vetoed last year’s version due to the state college piece, which is not in this edition.
Everything I’ve seen points to him signing it this year. I’ll feel a lot better once it’s a done deal though. You just never know with politicians.
Focusing on the 4 yr grad rat will make UF more competitive with top schools. Interesting to see how this all comes together.
Good step towards progress.
UF’s 4-year Graduation rate is 67% with UF targeting 70%+ this year.
The other US News top 10 Public Universities:
UC-Irvine: 71%
UC-San Diego: 59%
UC-Santa Barbara: 69%
Georgia Tech:41%
College of William and Mary:85%
UNC-Chapel Hill:84%
UM-Ann Arbor:77%
UVA:88%
UCLA: 74%
UC-Berkeley: 76%
UF’s engineering program will make it hard to compete with the more liberal art’s focused UVA, UNC and William and Mary, but they would be targeting the upper 70% range, and trying to equal or beat UCLA, UC-Berkeley and UM-Ann Arbor. Raising your 4-year graduation rate by almost 10% is a reach goal.
@Gator88NE to be fair to Georgia Tech, comparing their 4-year graduation rate is relatively meaningless. Most of their programs include a year’s internship pushing their usual graduation out to 5 years.
It’s looking like the odds of this bill passing are now very high. It is good for UF and good for Florida.
I was doing all of the top 10, so may as well included GT. It also helps make the point about engineering, and why it’s tough to get College of William and Mary type numbers. 
Thanks for the heads up! We were writing off our daughter’s Gator acceptance due to the uncertainty of the future of Bright Futures, but now we may have to reassess the situation. I hope Rick Scott signs it soon; on campus housing fees are due in 2 weeks. 
@momof1duke1tbd there is no uncertainty about the top tier of BF since last year so not sure what you mean. The only issue is whether it will be even more locked in with a permanent legislation (which was vetoed last year for other parts of the bill) rather than one year authorization. All three entities have been for this level of funding for two years. There just isn’t uncertainty.
@gatormarriednole The uncertainty is whether the funding would exist for the entire time my daughter attended UF. I was told by the UF Financial aid office that the funding amount could change from year to year, and as my daughter intends to go the full four years and never wants to have to transfer, we compare schools on the scholarship for the entirety of their undergraduate education, not the entering year. Year to year authorization is uncertainty from my perspective. However, Bright Futures, should it become permanent, trumps a scholarship of a fixed dollar amount at other universities due to their potential, and most likely, increase of tuition.
@momof1duke1tbd Uncertainty absolutely exists. Your kid also has to make their grades to keep Bright Futures. You can’t truly bank on it, but we are hopeful.
Governor Scott signed it. Great news…
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/gov-rick-scott-signs-bill-to-expand-florida-bright-futures-scholarship-program/714384769