I believe this was posted a while back, but since we are talking about it again, here it is as a reminder of what they've been doing to boost their numbers. New College of Florida pursues student athletes at academic cost (heraldtribune.com) Admissions data from New College of Florida shows that Interim President Richard Corcoran succeeded in his drive for a record number of incoming students this fall, largely driven by student-athlete recruitment. However, increased enrollment came with a decrease in overall grade point average and test scores, which had historically helped the school earn a national reputation as a top public liberal arts college. Overall, the average ACT and SAT scores for the incoming fall class at New College were lower than the previous year. The same group's overall GPA was also lower than in fall of 2022, according to data obtained by the Herald-Tribune and confirmed by the college. Much of the drop in average scores can be attributed to incoming student-athletes who, despite scoring worse on average, have earned a disproportionate number of the school's $10,000-per-year merit-based scholarships.
New College has no athletic facilities and has not been accepted into the NAIA, but they are recruiting heavily for their athletic teams, and dropping some serious money on merit scholarships for athletes.
We could from afar all come up with our own ideas of how to best spend the money. What we do know is the college was dying. And that is on the leadership and those who failed in their position. Fuchs made double what Machen made. We can come up with all sorts of things to make an issue over. But it feels like some of you refuse to acknowledge why this happened. New College was dying because of the prior leadership.
If that's true then let it die. Don't throw away millions more enriching your political friends. Giving out a bunch of baseball scholarships when u don't even have a program, facilities, etc is bizarre. Would be fun to see Corcoran's 5 year strategic plan. So much for fiscal conservatism.
In contrast to some of the drivel posted in this thread defending DeSantis' actions, this is how DeSantis has "saved" New College and even achieved record enrollment, much of this discussed by @philnotfil above. 1. Drastically lowered admission standards. 2. Create 6 new sports, including a baseball team despite the lack of a baseball field, and recruit the "student athletes" to play them. New College has only had intermural sports, now they have 6 intercollegiate sports. 3. Free brand new laptops. (Guess who who pays for them.) 4. $10,000 scholarships. (Guess who pays for them.) 5. Best housing available. (Seniors dorm turned into athletic dorm.) 6. Eliminate useless majors such as marine biology and gender studies. Forward the video to 7:20 where he's actually making jokes about hoping there were more protesters...largely college kids whose lives he just turned upside down by administrative fiat. In addition to being a little man in every sense of the word, he is a cruel man. We have the most anti-education governor in the nation.
Can you provide a link? All I see when I google is articles saying that New College was in danger of losing almost $30m in donations after desantis's takeover.
The weird part is that they don't actually have 6 intercollegiate sports yet. They have given out a bunch of scholarships, but the only sport they have enough players for is baseball. They don't have facilities, their NAIA application hasn't been accepted yet, but they have 70 baseball players, so they have that going for them.
This feels like DeSantis model for New College. Others have likely already made the connection, though I have not seen. The MCC, as it’s known locally, couldn’t be more divorced from the teacher shortages and battered infrastructure typical of Hungarian schools and colleges right now. That’s because MCC is no typical institution in a country where power is centered around one man and his worldview. The college is endowed with more than $1 billion by Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his government to nurture Hungary’s future leaders. Underpinned by money comparable with the rest of the country’s combined higher education budget, MCC has become a training ground for the next generation of Orban disciples to ensure the nationalist forces sympathetic to his “illiberal democracy” are replenished and exported. It’s hosted events with speakers including former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, who has shared some of Orban’s criticism of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine. Most recently, former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, an Orban ally against immigration who was charged with providing false testimony in a corruption probe, was feted as a celebrity at an MCC event in Budapest on Nov. 8. The MCC’s board of trustees is chaired by Balazs Orban, a close aide to the Hungarian prime minister, though not related to him. The college describes itself as “independent without being value-neutral” and its main mission is to develop talent rather than impose any ideology, according to its leadership. Inside Viktor Orban’s $1B academy for tomorrow’s Hungarian nationalists Inside Viktor Orban’s $1B academy for tomorrow’s Hungarian nationalists - Tampa Bay Times
American Association of University Professors releases report highly critical of political meddling in the university system. What DeSantis has done/is doing has national effects and will last longer than he does. Documenting the damage to higher education in Florida | Steve Bousquet – Sun Sentinel Report of a Special Committee: Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System In May 2023, this committee issued a preliminary report, concluding that “academic freedom, tenure, and shared governance in Florida’s public colleges and universities currently face a politically and ideologically driven assault unparalleled in US history,” which, “if sustained, threatens the very survival of meaningful higher education in the state, with the direst implications for the entire country.”7 The preliminary report offered four main findings: (1) the “hostile takeover” of New College is both a “test case” and a “blueprint for future encroachments on public colleges and universities across the country”; (2) academic administrators in Florida “not only have failed to contest” attacks on the system “but have too frequently been complicit in and, in some cases, explicitly supported them”; (3) legislation enacted by Governor DeSantis and the legislature, “taken collectively, constitutes a systematic effort to dictate and enforce conformity with a narrow and reactionary political and ideological agenda” and represents “a uniquely bold and dangerous program designed to reshape public higher education according to ideological and partisan political standards”; and (4) “the chilling effect on academic freedom of the governor’s and legislature’s efforts has already been felt by faculty and students.” What’s happening at New College is a disgrace. —Bernie Machen, president emeritus, University of Florida (interview with the special committee)
