Florida's 11 public universities have made an advance request for $65.4 million to retain faculty and staff members who have not had raises in two years. Yet the Legislature is looking at another major shortage in the 2009-10 budget. Something has to give. In this case, it's the Legislature.
Demand for science-based skills is high, for example, and research grants are portable. So not only are professors leaving, they're taking their money with them. At Florida International University, even the history department is down 37 percent as one professor leaves for the University of Tennessee, another for the University of North Carolina. "We have no shot at keeping" many of them, said university system Chancellor Mark Rosenberg. "And since everybody's networked, it's difficult to get good people to come down because they know the situation" in Florida.
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