Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s multi-million overhaul of the New College of Florida is rapidly turning into a disaster.
New College, a Sarasota campus of the University of South Florida, reported Wednesday that its numbers were in dramatic decline. In its last year of operation, the school has more than doubled its normal loss of first year students between fall semesters, according to an announcement by the college’s provost.
That marks the lowest retention rate of first year students in the college’s history, reported the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
New College, a school that was proudly unconventional until the far-right governor chose to give it a conservative revamp, saw 27 percent of its student body drop out.
Despite the dip, the school’s total enrollment was still up from last year, bringing a record 325 students to the school, according to the college’s fact book. That may be in part because the school has lowered its standards for admission, according to the Herald-Tribune, which cited lower grade-point averages and test scores of incoming students than those of previous classes.
Under DeSantis’s supervision, the school has seen some radical changes. The college’s leadership team has been upended: Six members of the board of trustees have been replaced by DeSantis allies, while the college’s president was ousted and replaced with the administration’s former education commissioner, Richard Corcoran. The school has also suffered a faculty exodus, the elimination of the college’s diversity office, and the firing of its academic librarian.
What DeSantis once described as a culture of “woke indoctrination” has been replaced by one of censorship: Student murals have been painted over, and student orientation leaders were forbidden from wearing pins expressing support for Black Lives Matter or the LGBTQ+ community, reported The New York Times.
The U.S. The Department of Education is also investigating a complaint that the new version of the school discriminated against disabled students, reported CNN. Another federal complaint was filed in August claiming that the new leadership of the school discriminated against LGBTQ+ students, effectively driving them out from the campus.