Colleges

Florida's students heading to college

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER, Times Staff Writer
Published August 20, 2007

Lisa Walker bids farewell to her son Patrick Walker Jr. outside of his dorm at USF after helping him move in. His family left after the move to return to Tallahassee, where he is from.
	[Kathleen Flynn | Times]

The laptops are charged, the campus meal plans purchased. The Greeks are vetting potential new members, and students are planning their first football tailgate feasts.

Starting today and continuing into next week, tens of thousands of college students begin the fall semester at Florida's 11 state universities.

Thanks to looming budget cuts of as much as $232-million, the buzz words around the university system these days are all about getting smaller: budget cuts, enrollment freezes, reduced library hours, program consolidation.

But cut and freeze as they might, Florida's university system remains positively super sized. Consider these staggering stats:

300,000 Students expected this fall

180,000 Students enrolled in fall 1993

59,000 Faculty and staff

62,000 Degrees granted last year, up 10,000 from five years earlier

3,590 Number of buildings

67-million Gross square feet of space

14,000 Acres of land

15.2-million Library books

608,000 E-books

7-million Credit hours taught in the academic year

22 Average student age

57 Percentage of students who are female

45,000 Undergrads enrolled in business and management, the most popular major

16,300 Undergrad education majors, second-most popular

51,000 The projected enrollment of UF, biggest state college, will exceed this number

760 Projected enrollment of New College, the state's smallest

5 Number of Florida universities among the nation's 20 largest for undergraduate enrollment, more than any other state

$2,200 In-state undergraduate tuition per year, among the cheapest in nation

30:1 Ratio of Florida students to tenured faculty, the second-worst in the country.

24:1 National average ratio

$11,500 Per-student spending, down from a high of $14,000 in 1989-90

0 New hires planned for USF, UF and UCF — part of a freeze to save money

$47.3 billion Amount college students and their families nationwide are expected to spend on gear, or $956.93 per student

$15 billion Amount of that $47-billion to be spent on textbooks.

Sources: Florida Board of Governors; New York Times; National Retail Federation

Today: Florida Gulf Coast, University of Central Florida

Thursday: University of Florida

Saturday: Florida Atlantic 

Aug. 27: University of South Florida, Florida International, Florida State, University of North Florida, University of West Florida, Florida A&M

Aug. 29: New College

[Last modified August 20, 2007, 00:18:25]