Don't tase me bro--and don't take my money either

(***Homegrown Pundit would like to welcome Rachel to the forum. Rach is a grad student at the U of F. I asked her to write a guest post to help broaden the view of politics here, by focusing on some areas of policy and politics around the country we don't usually get exposed to much in DC. Any negative comments you may have can be sent to her. Any positive ones can be sent my way. --Dave)


The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that Charlie Crist, the Republican governor of Florida, has established an advisor of higher-education issues, “to serve as an intermediary between the governor's office and the state's colleges and universities. The role of Dean Colson, the adviser, is to work with the universities, lawmakers, and other stakeholders to find ways to improve access, affordability, and university governance. The appointment of the unpaid liaison comes at a crucial time for colleges, with tuition-setting authority in legal limbo and institutions facing potentially deep budget cuts.”


For those not living in Florida or attending one of the institutions affected, these are not “potential cuts”. Many state universities are already in crisis mode because of the millions of dollars they won't have this year. Florida State University has capped enrollment. USF could lose between $15-million and $36-million. The University of Florida is in a hiring freeze even though they historically have the lowest tuition of all the schools in the South Eastern Conference (athletic conference the institution's division 1 teams play in).

The St. Petersburg Times reported in July:

“The University of Florida's budget would shrink by about $30-million under the minimum 4 percent cut. And UCF could lose as much as $28-million. Other universities face similar cuts. The figures don't include the $19-million in potential revenue state universities lost with Crist's recent veto of a 5 percent increase in in-state undergraduate tuition.”

This “advisor” was put into place after the budget was cut, but his job is to look at institutions before “potential budget cuts.” Am I the only one seeing the problem here? If Crist was all that concerned about the access, affordability or university governance he should have had this “advisor” do the research before going to such drastic measures as to cut the state’s budget to education. It’s stupid to cut the budget to state institutions by millions of dollars each, then create an “advisor” to look into what’s going on in higher education. It’s an attempt by Crist to make him look better, like he cares. He cut funding to higher education then realized, “Oh shit, some people care about this kind of thing. Must think of something quick!”

Maybe I’m biased, in fact I know I’m biased, but it seems ridiculous that education is always the first thing to get cut when a state is in financial crisis. Just more proof the state isn’t as concerned about educating their citizens, how else would they get elected?