New College/USF Sarasota-Manatee

For years, the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus has quietly done exactly what higher education is supposed to do: prepare local students for real careers, supply the region with nurses, teachers, and accountants, and strengthen the economic backbone of Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Now, two local legislators have voted to dismantle it.

Representatives Bill Conerly (HD-72) and Fiona McFarland (HD-73) voted to transfer the buildings and grounds of the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida despite clear opposition from business leaders, students, and large segments of the community they were elected to represent.

This was not some symbolic culture-war vote in Tallahassee. This was a direct vote against the economic and educational interests of their own constituents.

The Sarasota and Manatee Chambers of Commerce warned legislators not to do this. They made clear that USF Sarasota-Manatee provides a critical workforce pipeline in healthcare, education, and accounting — fields desperately needed in our region. New College does not even offer undergraduate degrees in those areas.

Instead, local representatives chose ideology over practicality.

New College has become the centerpiece of Governor Ron DeSantis’s highly publicized political crusade against “woke” education. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that broader agenda is beside the point. The question here is much simpler: Why should Sarasota and Manatee families lose a functioning, career-oriented campus to serve a political experiment?

Even more troubling, this was not a party-line vote. Republican Representatives James Buchanan (HD-74) and Will Robinson (HD-71) voted against the transfer. They recognized what Conerly and McFarland apparently did not: elected officials are supposed to represent their communities, not merely echo the priorities of political power brokers in Tallahassee.

History makes the vote even harder to justify.

New College began as a private institution in 1964 and was absorbed into the USF system in the 1970s after financial difficulties. It became autonomous again in 2001 with a clearly defined mission as Florida’s honors liberal arts college. Since then, the two institutions have coexisted successfully for nearly a quarter century.

There was no crisis demanding this takeover. No groundswell from students. No demand from employers. No educational necessity.

Only politics.

And the cost will not be paid by politicians in Tallahassee. It will be paid by local students who depend on affordable, practical degree programs. It will be paid by employers struggling to hire qualified professionals. It will be paid by a community losing an institution designed to serve its workforce needs.

Voters should remember that.

When politicians ignore business leaders, students, and the very communities they represent, elections become the only meaningful form of accountability. Sarasota and Bradenton residents deserve representatives who fight for local interests, not representatives willing to sacrifice community assets for ideological theater.

Come November, voters should ask a simple question: Who stood with this community — and who voted against it?

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