New College of Florida, the 900-student liberal arts college that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies seized two years ago and remade as a model for conservative higher education, is set to triple its physical footprint next month by acquiring the Sarasota-Manatee campus of the University of South Florida (USF).
The roughly 32-acre facility, home to about 2,000 students, includes a six-story residential hall and a $44 million student center, according to the university. The deal was inserted into the state budget by a legislative conference committee earlier this month after the proposal had appeared to die in the state Senate — a move Driskell said bypassed normal legislative protocols.
“My position has not changed,” Driskell told The Guardian, repeating her earlier characterization of the proposal as something that “reeks of grift.” She said the governor had “expanded and tested the limits of executive power in ways that I don’t think anybody would have ever foreseen.”
The transfer has drawn nearly universal opposition from USF students and faculty, education leaders, and the local business community, who say the campus serves a different population than New College and runs programs that are vital to the regional economy.
“It’s such a bad thing because USF Sarasota-Manatee was serving a different group of students than New College and had very different programs,” said Lucie Lapovsky, a higher education consultant who signed a letter to state lawmakers in May opposing the proposal. “Sarasota 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.”
Lapovsky said the campus provided nursing and healthcare graduates to several local hospitals and offered affordable degree access for local high school graduates and older residents returning to college. “It makes no sense whatsoever,” she said.
USF President Moez Limayem acknowledged the loss of the campus in a statement posted on the university’s website, saying it “creates significant uncertainty and anxiety for our dedicated, outstanding faculty, staff and students.” He said programs would continue during a four-year “teach-out” period and that enrolled students “will have the opportunity to finish their USF degrees in Sarasota-Manatee without disruption.”
Student leader Dennis Kukharenko, the student lieutenant governor at the campus, told faculty leaders in February that many students live far from campus and that its removal “really removes an opportunity to get a degree affordably,” according to WUSF.
MSI previously reported that DeSantis appointed former University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer to the New College board of trustees in January as part of the governor’s ongoing reconfiguration of the college. Read that article.
Richard Corcoran, a former speaker of the Florida House with no prior experience in higher education administration, was appointed New College president in 2024 with a salary package of $1.2 million — four times that of his predecessor. A November state efficiency study found New College cost almost half a million dollars to produce a single degree, according to the report. By comparison, the next-most-expensive Florida public university, Florida Polytechnic University, spent just under $155,000 per degree.
“It doesn’t even pass the governor’s own Doge [department of government efficiency] exercise,” Driskell said. “New College is a vanity project, and he’s been willing to spend whatever it takes to prop it up.”
Corcoran, a close DeSantis ally, has insisted New College is apolitical. Critics say the progressive college — which had a prominent LGBTQ+ community — has been “destroyed” by its sudden hard-right turn. In September, the college announced it was commissioning a statue of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing political activist murdered last year. In 2024, photographs of hundreds of dumped library books went viral after New College purged its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, appointed as a trustee by DeSantis, said the college was “throwing out the trash.”
DeSantis will be termed out of office in January 2027. Lapovsky said a change in the state’s political direction might provide a pathway for reversing the acquisition.
“I hope a new governor or legislature might undo this, but I have no idea,” she said. “It’s a tremendous loss to Sarasota and Manatee counties, and anyone who voted for it should be totally ashamed of themselves.”
In a statement, Corcoran did not directly address what would happen to USF courses after the four-year teach-out period ends. “New 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,” he said.