Gabrielle Russon
The House and the Senate are $80 million apart on a program giving extra money to Florida’s preeminent state universities.
The state gives additional funding to its top schools based on how they score on certain metrics, such as graduation rates, faculty’s credentials or its endowment size.
Last year, only four schools were deemed preeminent: the University of Florida, Florida State University, University of South Florida and Florida International University.
The Senate proposes funding the preeminence program with $80 million, while the House wants to provide no funding at all.
And the House and Senate are still split on whether to give Florida Polytechnic University funding to double in size to 3,000 students by 2030. The House, which initially proposed $10.7 million, has come down to $2.5 million, but the Senate hasn’t been willing to offer anything so far.
It was one of several higher education issues still being hashed out for higher ranking lawmakers to decide, as the higher education budget conference has now ended.
On other matters, the two chambers reached a resolution to close out line items. They agreed to spend $20.7 million on the Bright Futures Scholarship Fund to help students pay for college.
The House and Senate also both support sending $40 million on the Workforce Development Capitalization Incentive Grant Program.
The grants help school districts and state colleges expand career and technical programs.
Both sides also opted to give nothing to New College of Florida’s Freedom Institute. The House had initially wanted to give it $1.5 million to help the school taken over by Gov. Ron DeSantis put on live events and hire faculty to lead discussions on freedom of speech in higher education.
The House and Senate also agreed to give $10 million in recurring general fund revenue for New College to make “operational enhancements as determined by the President and Board of Trustees. Of the funds provided, a minimum of $5 million shall be used to provide scholarships to students,” according to the budget conference spreadsheet.
Also failing to get any money was Florida State University’s Election Law Center. The House initially offered $950,000.
And another item that closed out in budget talks was for University of Central Florida to receive $500,000 to use AI to create a tool for law enforcement to fight back against human trafficking “by monitoring and analyzing buyers’ on-line search behaviors.”
The money for UCF’s Center for the Study of Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery will also help law enforcement training.
The two sides also closed out $450,000 for Florida Atlantic University to grow its medical school enrollment and $750,000 for recruitment and retaining nurses in Volusia County.
