Just yesterday the Charlie Crist ad bashing Rick Scott for cutting college scholarships came on TV again. What timing.
I had just finished reading an email from a friend in Palm Beach County. And what an email. Her excitement was palpable. She used capital letters, exclamation points, repeated words for extra emphasis.
"Something wonderful just happened," she wrote.
She had just received a letter in the mail from the Florida Prepaid college tuition program telling her that on Nov. 1, she and her husband will receive not one, but two checks in the amount of $28,613.99.
Refund checks.
They have 2-year-old twins, for whom they paid the full$53,425.22 four-year tuition for each child earlier this year.They're getting more than half their money back, and here's the rub: They never knew it.
They hadn't heard.
They weren't following House Bill 851 in the Florida Legislature this past session. They had no idea the bill that allowed undocumented immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition also had tucked inside it a provision that froze tuition at current rates and repealed "differential tuition."And at the two institutions allowed raises -- University of Florida and Florida State -- HB 851 caps tuition at 6 percent.
Differential tuition was a thing the Legislature approved in 2007 during the Crist administration -- it was Florida universities' ability to raise tuition up to 15 percent a year. By 2009 the Board of Governors was allowing all universities to raise tuition 15 percent. Florida Prepaid was forced to increase its prices accordingly.
As it happens, my friend and her husband aren't alone. The size of their check is fairly stunning, but they are among 18,000 families who will receive $197 million in refunds. Another 22,000 families will see their monthly payments on the plan reduced dramatically, by more than $700 million over the remainder of their contracts.
And why? There's only one reason why. Because Gov. Rick Scott willed it so -- really and truly worked to make it happen -- even against the wishes of some Republican leaders in the Legislature. He made holding the line on tuition a priority.
Said my friend, "What makes this (help for families) so incredible is, I've seen countless negative campaign ads against Scott's track record on education; yet, we and thousands of other Florida families are receiving a refund thanks to a bill he signed.
"Don't you think that speaks loudly?" she asks.
Yes, I certainly do.
And I would add, Rick Scott didn't just sign HB 851. For the last two years, he pushed back so hard against differential tuition increases that no university attempted to institute one.
During the first conversation I ever had with the governor in 2011 he told me he was appalled at the enormity of student-loan debt in this country. "I don't want to see our kids (in Florida) start their lives carrying that kind of burden," he told me.
And Scott has admitted one of his proudest moments was getting every public college in the state to offer at least one form of $10,000 education. "Families need to be able to help their children," he said. "I think this means they can."
I wanted to tell my friend's happy story as a form of protest.
Of all the campaign ads that steal our time and play tricks with our mind, that one -- claiming Rick Scott wants to deny a lot of Florida students a college education -- gets the "pants on fire" prize from me and at least 40,000 Florida families holding letters from Florida Prepaid. Charlie should be taken into the schoolyard and caned in front of the rest of the kids.
Reach Nancy Smith atnsmith@sunshinestatenews.comor at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
