The state Senate

But critics say plan is a solution in search of a problem

wants to cap the number of four-year degrees state colleges can offer and dole out their funding based in part on the graduation rates of fulltime, first-time-in-college students.

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Senate wants to cap the number of four-year degrees state colleges can offer and dole out their funding based in part on the graduation rates of full-time, firsttime-in-college students.

But officials with Florida’s colleges say the caps are unnecessary and basing funding on how quickly some students graduate makes little sense in a system in which most students attend school part time.

A bill moving through the Florida Senate would make those changes, plus create a new State Board of Community Colleges to give more attention to state colleges.

They are currently overseen by the Board of Education, which also has authority over K-12 education.

However, state colleges do not support that change either.

“We believe the current model under the state Board of Education works very well. We continue to be viewed nationally as the premier college system in the country,” said Michael Brawer, president and CEO of the Association of Florida Colleges.

U.S. News and World Report ranked Florida the best state in the nation for higher education in 2017, based largely on low tuition costs and the graduation rate for two-year degrees.

Under the current system, although nominally overseen by the Board of Education, colleges are mostly governed by independent boards of trustees.

“They are able to govern and oversee and administer at the closest level to those institutions,” Brawer said. “Those are the things that have bred our success over these 15 to 20 years under the current system.”

The baccalaureate caps would mean upper-level enrollment at colleges could not be more than 20 percent of total enrollment at any one institution, and no more than 10 percent across the entire college system.

The caps are designed to ensure that state colleges keep to their primary missions: workforce training and preparing students to transfer to university for four-year degrees after attaining a twoyear degree at the college.

But critics call this a solution in need of a problem, and the Florida Legislature’s own research bears this out.

According to a report by the Florida Legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, students who take four-year degrees at state colleges are about 5 percent of total enrollment in the system.

Additionally, the report shows that 40 percent of the bachelor’s degrees offered by state colleges aren’t available at universities.

Also, the students who take them aren’t the same ones going into the state uni-

versity system; they are generally older and go to school parttime while working full-time.

The bill also would make some college funding dependent on the graduation rates of full-time, first-time-in-college students.

But those students make up a minority of state college students.

“I’ve heard loud and clear this idea that students are lingering a little longer than they should ... but we’re talking about a community college,” said state Sen. Tom Lee, RThonotosassa. “Those that do graduate, many of them are working and it is by design that they don’t graduate on time.”

Lenore Rodicio, a MiamiDade College provost who testified before a Senate panel about the measure Wednesday, said that just 21 percent of students at the college were full-time, and that it would be unfair to base funding on such a “small component” of the student body.

Lee voted for the legislation (SB 540) despite his misgivings in Wednesday’s meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, where the bill passed 6-1.

The lone no vote came from state Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale, who said that the success of Florida’s colleges shows that the current system works.

“I don’t think we can understate the excellence of our college system. It’s not debatable,” he said.

“We have the best college system in this country by any metric by which you choose to measure these state systems.”

The bill still has one more committee in the Senate and has not yet had a hearing in the House.

But even if it passes, there’s no guarantee Gov. Rick Scott will sign it.

The Florida Senate attempted to make many of these changes in last year’s session in a major overhaul of both the state college and university systems — but that bill was vetoed by Scott over the restrictions to state colleges.

“This legislation impedes the State College System’s mission by capping the enrollment level of baccalaureate degrees and unnecessarily increasing red tape,” Scott said of the bill.