This year, the proposal was to consolidate New College of Florida and Florida Polytechnic Universities into the University of Florida. It faced immediate backlash and protest statewide from both sides of the aisle. Before being officially abandoned by the House Speaker Jose Olivia, it was on its 3rd set of iterations. First the two schools would have one going to UF and one to FSU. The next change had them both merging with UF. The 3rd change had changed it from a merger to an acquisition so that UF wouldn’t have to go through the process of being reaccredited as a University itself.
Fine goes on record saying that he runs his subcommittee of Higher Education like a business. He made his millions in the private sector running casinos before entering politics. However, the gambles he seems to take on the Florida’s education system have not paid off. In line with his thinking, this proposal was much like a larger corporation trying to “buy out” a smaller business. Fine’s claim was that the proposal would save tax payers money, but he laid out that idea with misleading and incomplete information. It turned out not to be the case.
Some of his own tweets demonstrated a lack of total understanding of the education system he partially oversees.
