Florida lawmakers may make university presidential searches public again
In recent years, Gov. Ron DeSantis has helped install political allies at the helm of public colleges and universities in an effort to remake Florida’s higher education into a bastion of conservatism. Now, a bill advancing in the Republican-led Florida House seeks to stop the governor and employees in his administration from getting involved in a university’s presidential search. More from the Tampa Bay Times and WUSF.
Florida universities face sweeping state audit under DOGE mandate
Florida’s public universities and colleges have just two weeks to turn over six years’ worth of records on staffing, research and grant funding as part of the first formal information request under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ newly mandated Department of Government Efficiency – a sweeping effort to identify “inefficiencies” in higher education.+ The DOGE team outlined the first phase of its audit in a letter to university presidents. [Source: Florida Politics]
U.S. News' 2025 Best Graduate Schools are out. How did Florida rank?
U.S. News & World Report has unveiled its list of the 2025 Best Graduate Schools in the country, ranking the best educational institutions in engineering, medicine, business, law, education, nursing and social sciences for students hoping to further their educations beyond college. How did Florida schools rank? We are solidly and decidedly mid. [Source: Tallahassee Democrat]
Florida private college students could lose state tuition help
Florida government leaders have worked for more than a decade to keep the cost of attending public college and university steady and affordable. Private school leaders have pointed out that their sector makes up for about one-third of higher education in the state. And for at least five years, they’ve been pushing back against legislative moves to reduce the state-funded Effective Access to Student Education, or EASE, grants that have helped students afford them. The debate is back again this year. More from the Tampa Bay Times and Higher Ed Dive.
2 new bills would make it easier to establish charter schools in Florida
State lawmakers are working to pass two different bills to make establishing charter schools easier in Florida. House Bill 123 and Senate Bill 140 would eliminate a requirement forcing charter schools to get approval from 50% of teachers before converting a public school to a charter school among other changes. Nonpartisan staff with the Florida House of Representatives said the current requirements include a vote of at least 50% of teachers employed at the school and a vote of 50% of the parents with children enrolled at the school. [Source: WPTV]
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ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Jacksonville University competing in NASA’s 2025 Human Lander Challenge
Jacksonville University said April 8 it is the only university in the country with two student teams selected as finalists in NASA’s 2025 Human Lander Challenge, a national competition driving the future of space exploration. Focused on developing solutions for storing and transferring cryogenic fuel in space, the competition supports NASA’s Artemis program, which is preparing to send astronauts to the moon and eventually to Mars.
› How Broward schools got ‘out of whack’ — losing students while keeping employees
Student enrollment in Broward schools has dropped nearly 30,000 over the past decade, but the number of employees has increased by 324, an untenable situation that will likely trigger major cuts over the next year, Superintendent Howard Hepburn said this week. Had the school district been reducing its staff at the same rate it was losing students, it would have about 4,500 fewer employees, Romaneir Johnson, the district’s new chief financial officer, acknowledged at a meeting Tuesday.
› Pasco school district pulls plug on dedicated early learning center
The Pasco County school district’s first dedicated early learning center will shut its doors after just two years of operation. Mittye P. Locke Early Learning Academy opened in 2023 in New Port Richey with anticipation high that families would flock there for prekindergarten and other programs. The district spent $2 million converting the former elementary school into a 10-classroom center aimed at providing services that were in short supply in the west Pasco community. Things did not turn out as hoped, though.
› UNF wins $3 million from city and turns to getting $48 million from state for campus work
Jacksonville will chip in $3 million for an esports arena at the University of North Florida that school leaders say is a key part of their strategy to ramp up enrollment by thousands of students in the coming years. Despite initial skepticism from some City Council members, they voted 15-1 on Tuesday for the spending sought by Mayor Donna Deegan. UNF will set up a roomful of 42 interconnected gaming stations in the campus's student center where teams of players will compete in the fast-growing field of esports, short for electronic sports.