Florida's population is increasing and interest in higher education is increasing. Ergo, more university access is needed.
Enter private universities -- a good deal for taxpayers.
Public universities with lavish facilities and lucrative football teams get the attention but for more than 150,000 students, the 31 private colleges in Florida are providing a good education with little aid from the taxpayer.
The Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida includes Stetson, the oldest university in Florida; Jacksonville University; the huge University of Miami; tiny Flagler College in St. Augustine and others.
Without the bureaucratic burden and political oversight, the independents can be innovative and respond quickly to student needs and emerging technology. While the 12 state universities gradually are moving into online education, the market sensitive independents already are there. They have a total of 470 fully online degree programs at all levels.
They also have a lot of that precious commodity: diversity -- not only demographically, but also by income. About 43 percent of their students are minorities and more than half come from families with incomes of less than $60,000.
They also serve more than just recent high-school graduates. At St. Leo College, three of every four students is over 25.
The state subsidizes public university students by $8,400 (65 percent of the actual cost). It provides private college students with Florida Resident Access Grants worth $3,000 currently, so taxpayers save at least $5,000 on every private student, not even counting construction and maintenance.
The independents craft financial aid packages that help their students meet the higher tuition costs.
Independents typically are smaller in student population and class size. Professors actually teach, not their assistants.
Each year the independents have to go to the Legislature hat in hand for the tuition assistance. It was at $3,000 several years ago, but declined during the recession and is now back at $3,000. In the next session, they hope to bump it up to $3,200, thus increasing the benefit to taxpayers.
According to ICUF President Ed Moore, “The more students who choose ICUF schools, the more it serves as a pressure relief valve for the demand for more school space in the public side.”
Moore notes that when comparing state universities to the independents, the average borrower in the private setting owes on average only about $2,000 a year more, despite the subsidy difference.
Still, they produce more than 19,000 bachelor's degrees and 15,000 advanced degrees each year, and unemployment among those graduates is half that of young people with only high school degrees.
Like the tax credit scholarship program and other forms of vouchers, the grant to private colleges is a boon to taxpayers – and some of the colleges even have a religious affiliation, no doubt to the horror of liberals.
But I suspect most Florida families care more about educational outcomes and costs than they do about liberal sensitivities and animosity to organized religion.
Lloyd Brown was in the newspaper business nearly 50 years, beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. After retirement he served as a policy analyst for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
