{"id":38531,"date":"2025-11-08T07:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T07:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/38531\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T07:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T07:23:11","slug":"florida-universities-audited-for-wasteful-spending-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/38531\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida universities audited for wasteful spending practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 Back in February, Florida DOGE began its task of auditing state universities and colleges, looking for unnecessary spending, programs, staff, or other inefficiencies, and now the report is in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur universities are doing some really good things in terms of how they are handling finances, but there\u2019s always going to be room for improvements,\u201d Gov. Ron DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

While the recent audits into Florida universities and colleges highlight having the lowest tuition in the nation and the most affordable degrees, the report says budgeting is something that can and should improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do better, and we should do better,\u201d said Ben Watkins, Director of the Florida Division of Bond Finance.<\/p>\n

This week at the Florida Board of Governors meeting, Ben Watkins, who is leading this charge, compared success measures between the state\u2019s public universities.<\/p>\n

It recognized the University of Central Florida as being the most efficient in the state, while New College of Florida in Sarasota ranked the least efficient in the system, costing nearly half a million dollars to produce one student\u2019s degree, while UCF sits at $46,000.<\/p>\n

8 On Your Side reached out to New College of Florida for a response on the findings, and Vice President of Communications Jamie Miller shared, \u201cThursday\u2019s report reflects the failed enrollment of previous administrations. Thanks to Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature making a bold move to appoint new leadership with clear goals, the impact of\u00a0New College\u2019s revitalization is already visible with enrollment surpassing 900 students for the first time in history.\u00a0As enrollment growth continues to skyrocket, cost-per-student and cost-per-graduate metrics will be one of the lowest of all liberal arts schools in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following this week\u2019s DOGE presentation, members of the Board of Governors agreed that there\u2019s always room for improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the state, it\u2019s taxpayer dollars. And so, we have a duty to actually make sure that\u2019s spent wisely and the outcomes warrant the investment,\u201d said Eric Silagy, Member, Board of Governors.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s next? It\u2019s now up to university presidents to consider the recommendations and speak directly with the DOGE team.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 Back in February, Florida DOGE began its task of auditing state universities and colleges,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19114,28,25812,22928,30,29,26261,12179,26260,412,7555,2103],"class_list":["post-38531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-ben-watkins","tag-florida","tag-florida-board-of-governors","tag-florida-division","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jamie-miller","tag-new-college-of-florida","tag-public-universities","tag-ron-desantis","tag-universities","tag-university-of-central-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38531","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=38531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}