Florida once again has received mediocre scores on a national report card evaluating the state's colleges and universities.
While college enrollment among the state's 18- to 24-year- olds has improved since the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education released its first study in 2000, the group's latest report, which will be released today, ranks Florida near the bottom in college participation.
Worse, Florida got an F for affordability, even though the state's tuition rate is among the lowest in the nation.
That's because the study emphasized not only the cost of tuition, but the percent of income families must devote, even after financial aid, to higher education.
Relying on federal and state statistics, the group concluded that Florida families spent 18 percent of their income to attend public four-year colleges in 2007, up from 12 percent in 1999. For two-year colleges, the amount was 25 percent, up from 18 percent.
Further eroding Florida's affordability score was the relatively meager state investment in need-based financial aid, said center president Patrick Callan.
"While a lot of students get money from Bright Futures Scholarships, a lot of it goes to those who are going to college anyway," Callan said. "It doesn't reach the kids who need it the most."
The report card also graded states on the percentage of young adults who earn a high school diploma, the percentage of residents who have a bachelor's degree, and the number of undergraduate degrees awarded relative to the number of students enrolled.
Florida scored two C's and a B-plus, respectively, in those categories.
Additional findings show that:
• Only 27 percent of Florida high school students take at least one upper-level science course, compared with 46 percent in the top states.
• Only 68 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges in Florida return for their sophomore year, compared with 82 percent in the top states.
• The proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree in Florida is 27 percent, 10 percentage points less than the top states. Fifteen countries, including Japan, Korea, France and Canada, also surpass Florida on this measure.
Such lackluster scores are an indication that the state's access to a competitive work force likely is diminishing, leading to a weaker economy, Callan said.
"This is not a problem you can act on after it exists," he said. "It's sort of like global warming. When the ice cap has melted, that's when you fully see the consequences, but it's too late to fix it."
While there is no "silver bullet" to correct all of Florida's education woes, Callan said policymakers should refrain from making things worse.
One way to do that, he said, is to vote against Gov. Charlie Crist's recently announced plan to let state universities raise tuition by as much as 15 percent.
"It's a dangerous time to be taking another chunk of a family's income and saying, 'They'll just borrow to be able to afford it.' " Callan said.
Bill Edmonds, spokesman for the group that oversees Florida's 11 state universities, strongly disagreed with the report's conclusions.
"I just can't get past the F for affordability," Edmonds said. "It's a nonsense response to the reality of higher-education opportunities in Florida."
Officials at the state Department of Education declined to comment on the report, saying they needed more time to study it in detail.
Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.
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