Budget conference: Goodbye preeminent funding for Florida’s top universities

Last year the Legislature approved $40 million. This year: $0.

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Florida’s best universities are not getting any extra state dollars this year as a reward for being in an elite class.

The Legislature opted to axe preeminent funding completely.

The chambers ended their budget talks late Sunday as the Legislature works to pass a budget in Special Session after failing to do so during the 60-day Regular Session.

The Senate originally sought $100 million to reward the “preeminent” research universities but was unable to reach a compromise with the House which wanted to eliminate it. The Senate later lowered its offer to $50 million but the House didn’t bite.

“I happen to think that preeminence is very, very important. We are the No. 1 state system in the entire country, and preeminence has been a key part of driving that,” Senate Appropriations Committee on Higher Education Chair Gayle Harrell told reporters earlier during budget talks.

Two years ago, the state’s elite schools shared a pot of $100 million to spend hiring more faculty or beef up student initiatives to keep improving. Last year, the Legislature decided to fund preeminent schools with $40 million.

Schools that have claimed preeminent status are the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of South Florida and Florida International University.

And the University of Central Florida had been seeking to get added to the list for years and was expected to get the preeminent status next month. Only now, UCF won’t get any extra reward that comes with it.

“Look, the institutions can still call themselves preeminent universities without the funding being there. That’s obviously something that throughout the years has sometimes been there and sometimes there hasn’t been,” House Higher Education Budget Subcommittee Chair Demi Busatta told reporters earlier.

To get preeminent status, Florida’s universities must meet 12 out of 13 requirements on students’ average GPA and SAT scores, the school’s endowment size, how many patents faculty have been awarded and graduation rates or freshmen retention rates.