TALLAHASSEE - The notion of a state without state universities is not necessarily part of the Libertarian Party's announced designs on some small state yet to be selected. It may already be on the path to partial fulfillment in Florida, the fourth largest.
The Legislature took the first tentative step last month when it ordered a study into a joint proposal by the University of Florida and Florida State University for a contractual status that would make them (and several of the other nine schools) virtually autonomous.
The Legislature would pledge funds on a per-student basis. The universities could charge whatever tuition they thought the market would bear rather than have to keep begging the Legislature for permission to raise it.
The Bright Futures scholarship program would no longer be required to match tuition increases. That would please Gov. Jeb Bush, the university presidents and some legislators who unsuccessfully sought "decoupling" this year. For the scholarship holders and their families, however, it would mean greater borrowing or spending out of pocket. They would also be paying extra on behalf of students whose prepaid tuition contracts - evidently more of a sacred cow - would continue to be honored.
According to a joint UF-FSU statement, the universities would guarantee that need-based Bright Futures scholars would receive "sufficient financial aid to make up the difference." This would come, of course, at the expense of all other students, which is how private universities do it. But where many private schools have huge endowments to share the burden, most Florida state universities do not.
Though they would remain public in name (and in sovereign immunity from lawsuits), the universities would be considered "state-related" rather than "state-supported."
Could total privatization be far behind?
"It would be semi-privatization," concedes John Thrasher, chairman of the FSU Board of Trustees. "Basically, it's the discretion to raise fees and tuition."
"Nothing is "semi,' " counters Charley Reed, the former Florida university chancellor who is now chancellor of the California state university system. "You're not going to be a little bit pregnant in that business."
Disclosure is appropriate here. I have two sons on Bright Futures scholarships at FSU, though none of this is likely to come to pass in time to impact them. That said, the perils for public policy are obvious.
What's to make the governor and Legislature honor the funding levels specified in the proposed five-year contracts? Without a constitutional amendment, nothing. Even with an amendment, maybe nothing. The share of general revenue appropriated to higher education would continue to decline.
"We both know one legislature can't bind another," says FSU president T.K. Wetherell, who like Thrasher is a former House speaker. Funding would depend on the moral commitment of legislators, which is not exactly terra firma in an era of term limits and increasing political uninterest in public education.
But from the universities' standpoint, these are desperate times that dictate desperate measures. The universities and community colleges are clearly not a priority for Bush, who pays most of his attention to K-12. Higher education's share of general revenue has fallen 10 percent under the Bush administration, which by dismantling the old Board of Regents effectively - and, some say, deliberately - undercut the universities' political influence. The new budget imposes overall cuts despite tuition increases, allowing no money for enrollment growth. The new Board of Governors, forced on Bush by Bob Graham's constitutional initiative, gave the presidents no help in the budget battle. Neither did the 11 boards of trustees.
"Their silence was deafening," complains Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, and is skeptical of the campaign for autonomy.
"What you saw with the (presidential) pay increases you'll see with tuition," says Pruitt.
From Wetherell's perspective, that's precisely what Bush and his appointees want.
"They come at it from the private sector, where if you need money you raise tuition," he said in an interview. "What you've found is a swapout of tuition and general revenue, and that's why I believe the line between a private university and a public university is becoming very fuzzy in Florida."
Wetherell's predecessor at FSU, Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, was the first to go public with the idea of loosening the moorings. It's not what he would prefer, says D'Alemberte, who is now teaching law at FSU.
"I'd like the North Carolina system: low tuition, high state support, where you have a state that cares about higher education," he said in an interview. Instead, he sees FSU and the others as victims of the worst possible situation: low tuition, low support, and nothing but "despair" for the prospects of tax reform that would enable a difference.
"The worst thing you can do is to not properly fund universities and to give (students) diplomas and don't give them an education," D'Alemberte said. "I hope it's not happening yet, but we're seriously going in that direction."
It's a Hobson's choice that he and others see, with no alternatives but a public system fated to inferiority and a privatized system priced beyond reach of many students who would have nowhere else to go.
Is this the best Florida can do? How selfish, how short-sighted, can we Floridians be?
