{"id":314775,"date":"2026-06-21T12:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/314775\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:49:08","slug":"florida-college-seized-by-desantis-in-anti-woke-push-to-triple-in-size-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/314775\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida college seized by DeSantis in \u2018anti-woke\u2019 push to triple in size | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

A liberal arts college seized by Florida\u2019s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, and transformed<\/a> into a model for conservative higher education is to triple in size after state Republicans engineered a hostile takeover of a rival university\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n

New College of Florida, which is controlled by DeSantis\u2019s hand-picked board of trustees, will acquire the Sarasota-Manatee campus<\/a> of the University of South Florida (USF) next month in a deal described by a leading Florida Democrat as \u201ca grift\u201d.<\/p>\n

The transfer of the 32-acre, 2,000-student facility, which has a new six-story residential hall and $44m student center, will significantly expand the footprint of the 900-student New College that the governor has touted as a blueprint<\/a> for his \u201canti-woke\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n

The transfer will proceed despite almost universal opposition from USF students and faculty, education leaders, and the local business community<\/a>, who say popular, thriving programs including nursing, tourism and hospitality, will end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a bad thing because USF Sarasota-Manatee was serving a different group of students than New College and had very different programs,\u201d said Lucie Lapovsky<\/a>, a higher education consultant and one of dozens of signatories on a letter to state lawmakers<\/a> last month condemning the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarasota is a big tourist area right on the water on the Gulf of Mexico. We have lots of hotels and restaurants that employ graduates of that program. We have several hospitals, and graduates of USF health programs work there. It provides opportunities for students who graduated from local high schools, as well as older residents going back to college.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes no sense whatsoever in terms of access to higher education for students, in terms of what the area was producing and offering, in terms of academic programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> posted on the USF website, its president, Moez Limayem, acknowledged the loss of the campus \u201ccreates significant uncertainty and anxiety for our dedicated, outstanding faculty, staff and students\u201d. He said the programs would continue to operate during a four-year \u201cteach-out\u201d period before they close.<\/p>\n

\u201cUSF\u2019s strength is not a collection of buildings and land; our real strength has been, and always will be, our people,\u201d Limayem wrote, promising that students enrolled \u201cwill have the opportunity to finish their USF degrees in Sarasota-Manatee without disruption\u201d.<\/p>\n

Student leaders were also critical. \u201cAll students here on our campus truly would like for USF to stay here in our Sarasota-Manatee community,\u201d Dennis Kukharenko, the student lieutenant governor, told faculty leaders in February, reported by WUSF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us live really far away from campus. We have to drive here. And removal of this campus really removes an opportunity to get a degree affordably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fentrice Driskell, leader of Florida\u2019s House Democratic caucus, accused Republicans of bypassing normal legislative protocols to approve the handover. A proposal passed the chamber earlier this year but was not taken up by the state senate, leading opponents to believe the measure had died.<\/p>\n

But it was resurrected by a conference committee earlier this month and inserted with little debate<\/a> into the final state budget currently awaiting DeSantis\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy position has not changed,\u201d said Driskell, who during the Florida House discussion said the proposal \u201creeks of grift\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Sarasota-Manatee campus found out they could be the next victim in DeSantis\u2019s schemes, of course, they were on high alert, then had a moment of feeling safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s just all been taken away, and it\u2019s been really hard to watch. This is a governor who has expanded and tested the limits of executive power in ways that I don\u2019t think anybody would have ever foreseen, and he\u2019s been such a bully about all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics point to the amount of money thrown at New College by the DeSantis administration.<\/p>\n

Richard Corcoran, a close ally of the governor and a former speaker of the Florida House with no previous experience in higher education administration, was appointed New College president in 2024 and has a salary package of $1.2m<\/a>, four times higher than his ousted predecessor.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a damning efficiency study published in November<\/a> showed it cost almost half a million dollars to produce a degree at New College. The next highest of Florida\u2019s 13 state universities and colleges was Florida Polytechnic University at just under $155,000 per degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t even pass the governor\u2019s own Doge [department of government efficiency] exercise,\u201d Driskell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is so much waste here, and it is incredibly frustrating to watch the governor try to bend the higher education system towards his political will. New College is a vanity project, and he\u2019s been willing to spend whatever it takes to prop it up. Whatever New College needs, they\u2019re going to give it those resources, but you know the truth is that it\u2019s a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corcoran has insisted New College is apolitical, while critics have said the progressive college with a prominent LGBTQ+ community<\/a> has been \u201cdestroyed\u201d by its sudden hard-right turn.<\/p>\n

In September, the college announced it was commissioning a statue<\/a> of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing political activist murdered last year.<\/p>\n

In 2024 photographs of hundreds of dumped library books went viral<\/a> after New College purged its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, appointed by DeSantis as a New College trustee, angered students by saying the college was \u201cthrowing out the trash\u201d.<\/p>\n

DeSantis will be termed out of office in January, and Lapovsky said a change in the state\u2019s political direction might provide a pathway for reversing the acquisition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope a new governor or legislature might undo this, but I have no idea,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey claim that the students currently enrolled will get to finish their programs, which means that the education will continue on the campus at least for two or three more years. If that\u2019s the case, there may be ways that it can be undone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous loss to Sarasota and Manatee counties, and anyone who voted for it should be totally ashamed of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Corcoran did not directly address what would happen to USF courses at the end of the \u201cteach-out\u201d period.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew College is prepared to steward this transition with care and intentionality as we continue building a nationally distinctive public liberal arts institution focused on academic excellence, civic discourse, innovation and student opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to working closely with regional leaders, faculty, staff and community partners to ensure a positive long-term decision for the region, for the state university system and for the future of higher education in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A liberal arts college seized by Florida\u2019s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, and transformed into a model for conservative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-314775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}