'U.S. News & World Report "America's Best Colleges 2008" rankings [show] the University of Florida falling from 47th place to 49th and Florida State University dropping from 110th to 112th among the top 125 U.S. universities. Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and Florida International University in Miami all reside unceremoniously in the bottom tier of the 1,400 rated institutions.

At the other end of the spectrum was Monday's fun-loving assessment of party schools [which ranked] UF as No. 4 in the top 20 party schools and FSU as No. 18...

..."We're cheap and we're proud of it," [Former chancellor Charles] Reed said [in a speech Monday] of Florida's attitude toward its university system. It's a line he made famous when he left Florida more than a decade ago to become chancellor of the California State University System. Regrettably, it still holds today. Our state budget doesn't dependably fund enrollment growth. In California, he said, there is a sacrosanct 2.5-percent budget for enrollment growth. Florida lawmakers haven't funded growth for more than five years. One result is that we are dead last in the teacher-to-pupil ratio, a situation that puts a serious squeeze on quality learning and getting students graduated on time.

Some Board of Governors members in attendance Monday were forced to endure a deserved finger-wagging for the BOG's inactivity almost since its inception in 2002.

Just this summer, however, it has awakened to its authority and obligations, joining a lawsuit asserting its autonomy to control tuition, freezing new enrollment and generally going to war with a legislative branch that has, to its shame, elevated anti-intellectualism to a team sport.

Gov. Charlie Crist has tiptoed into the fray, saying he's ready to strike "an accord" with Chancellor Mark Rosenberg, the BOG and other leaders. Clearly they need to stabilize funding, as Mr. Reed observed, and fix a badly flawed and ultimately unaffordable financial-aid system that helps the well-off through Bright Futures scholarships while skipping over many needy students.

In California, he said, citizens understand that higher education is the bread and butter of their economy and also it has "a Legislature that has a long history of supporting their universities because of the economic and cultural development they provide."

Back east in the Sunshine State, such enlightenment is far from prevalent. We remain in need of passionate leaders to strike that "accord" and lead our university system out of the miserable slump it's been in and the political savaging it has endured.'

---tallahassee democrat---

'Most people outside higher education don't think that much about how their state college and university systems are run.

But somehow only Florida has made such a mess of its own governing system that it generated an opinion piece in the national edition of The New York Times by Stanley Fish.

Try explaining to an outsider that there was a Board of Regents, then the Regents went away, then voters passed a former governor's initiative that brought back the Regents, but they are now called Governors, and we still haven't settled once and for all who has the right to set tuition.

The average person would say “Huh?” to which I would respond, “Exactly.”

...Scholarships should be based on need, not solely on merit.

Why are we financing higher education for students from families who can well afford the tuition many times over?

I called [Bright Futures] “one of the dumbest public policies” when it was created when I was Chancellor here. I think today I'd call it “the dumbest, not just one of the dumbest.”

The effect is that Florida's universities are not educating the growing populations of underserved students, particularly those of color and most needy. It is these students whose educational levels will ultimately shape the direction of the state's economy.

Florida must disconnect from the Bright Futures program. You can't afford it and it is just plain wrong.

Mark Howard, editor of Florida Trend.com, recently called the Bright Futures program and the Prepaid College Plan, “programs that for all their good intentions, help imprison the system in mediocrity.”

...One university getting something at the expense of all the others, based upon who is Speaker or President of the Senate - will never work!'