Supporters of University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee (USF-SM) have only a few more days to convince Florida legislators that the local campus is worth saving. Legislators meet in Tallahassee to begin the process of deciding who gets money and who doesn’t during the budget session May 12-28.
USF-SM is on the chopping block as part of HB 5601, a proposal to transfer the local USF campus—its land, buildings and debt—to New College of Florida, starting July 1. In February, the House Higher Education Budget Subcommittee approved the transfer, but the Senate did not include it in its bill. Now the two sides hammer it out. If the proposal is approved, USF-SM disappears, and so do all of its workforce programs and undergraduate and graduate degrees.
USF-SM is a 50-year-old institution with 2,000 students and 40 accredited degree programs in nursing, teacher education, risk management and insurance, and cybersecurity and technology. About 95 percent of its graduates stay and work locally in the community. In March, hundreds of supporters gathered to protest the takeover…