Students plan to fight bill that proposes merging New College into FSU

"A bill threatening the continued existence of New College is hanging like a dark cloud over the institution.

President Donal O’Shea took the fight to Tallahassee on Wednesday. O’Shea is urging lawmakers to reconsider the proposal to turn New College into a Florida State University campus and Florida Polytechnic into a University of Florida campus.

Students plan to fight the bill with O’Shea and make their voices heard today at a student planned rally.

On the Facebook event page created by student Alex Barbat, she wrote, ‘We called on the Education Committee to stop the NCF/FSU merger and although they heard us, they chose not to listen.’

‘So, we are going to be even louder this time, by participating in a campus-wide rally,’ she said." …

https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/education/students-plan-to-fight-new-college-merging-bill/67-9bd5cd2e-58e6-4ba7-a5f3-bf18012cd061

New College of Florida, a public school, has only about 724 students. Wants to grow to 1,200 students by 2024-2025, but has been losing students.

Seems like merging it into a large state university makes sense as it is little more than a small honors college which are part of large public universities.

Why should Florida support an inefficient, tiny LAC which is experiencing declining enrollment ?

Wonder if there are any similarities to the Hampshire College situation.

This is very interesting. As @Publisher points out, New College has had falling enrollment while the other public universities in Florida are becoming increasingly competitive. As the parent of kids from a large public high school in Florida with graduating classes of more than 650, I know that my kids and many of their high achieving friends have little interest in a school with an OK reputation but only 800+ students. New College is also sticking by its quirky roots – kids don’t get letter grades. Frankly, I’m not willing to pay for that. At the same time, FAU’s freestanding honors college also is making a play for the LAC crowd. I imagine that the thinking is that the New College experiment should probably be over.

I think UF could make great use of the resources of that campus. There will be thousands of disappointed kids on Friday who applied to but are rejected by UF. It’s a huge number of very talented students but few have New College as their safety. The lure of UF is incredibly strong.

The Florida Polytechnic situation is also intriguing. It’s only been open for a few years, so it seems like that school deserves some more time to get its footing and try to become more efficient while tackling its specialized mission. However, if I’m the UF administration, I’m looking at that 170 acre campus, still largely undeveloped and a scant 120 miles south of Gainesville, and dreaming of incredible possibilities – mentally moving in.

The Florida legislature traditionally has a disproportionate number of Gators within its ranks, and the UF faithful are pushing hard for the university to become a top five public university – the Drive for Five. Could expanding the UF footprint with two more campuses help UF leapfrog its way into the top 5? Perhaps the eye is on the top prize?

Even if New College could get its entire student body to Tallahassee to protest, I’m not sure the 700 or so kids could slow this thing down…

We visited New College, and it was by far the hardest no from my daughter. She felt the students were trying too hard to be different, just for the sake of being different. And yes, too small! It’s a shame, because I think the school could and should be amazing - imagine a highly selective LAC that Florida students could actually afford!

When we went to visited, NC talked about how they were increasing enrollment - sounds like they didn’t meet that goal. I don’t know if merging with UF is the right option, but I’d love to see changes that would make this a real contender for high achieving FL students who would prefer a smaller college.

The most common comments that I have heard over the past decade about visits to New College concern marijuana & the odor of pot.

@TrendaLeigh : Agree with your observations. (The trying too hard stirs up thoughts about Bard College.)

I get why the kids are upset. They attended New College expecting the small school experience. Getting pulled into a large school like FSU will be a dramatic difference. I doubt they will be able to stop it

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From the article in the Herald Tribune:

It seems to me that there are people with financial interests in the mergers who are pushing it, rather than this being done to benefit FSU or UoF.

As of a day or so ago, the house bill did not have a companion bill on the senate side. Can’t get to the governor without a senate bill. If nothing else, this is a huge warning shot for both schools.

The Florida higher education system (check that - every executive branch department in Florida) is full of legislative pet projects built to satisfy the egos of various powerful leaders of the legislative bodies, political donors, and alumni bases. I’ve received a BS, Master’s, and JD at three different Florida universities and worked for two of them. There are creative, visionary, hardworking, fantastic staff and students at all of them, yet they are left to play the hand the legistlature (via the voters) gives them through their budgets, programmatic directive and tuition/fee structures.

I don’t think either New College or Poly try very hard. I had two Florida high school students, one for each of these schools, and neither school contacted or tried to get either daughter. My engineer ended up at a private Florida school and my arty kid ended up in Wyoming. No post cards, no invitations to visit, no swag.

I don’t think either kid would have ended up at these schools, but there was no marketing aimed at them at all.