Student outcomes and rankings are slipping at the liberal arts college while spending is up. Critics believe the college is at risk of implosion, and some are calling for privatization.
While state officials, including Republican governor Ron DeSantis, have celebrated the death of what they have described as “woke indoctrination” at the small liberal arts college, student outcomes are trending downward across the board: Both graduation and retention rates have fallen since the takeover in 2023.
Those metrics are down even as New College spends more than 10 times per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend, on average. While one estimate last year put the annual cost per student at about $10,000 per member institution, New College is an outlier, with a head count under 900 and a $118.5 million budget, which adds up to roughly $134,000 per student.
Now critics are raising new questions about NCF’s reputation, its worth and its future prospects as a public liberal arts college.