Florida lawmakers have an amazingly difficult task before them as they go to work in 2009. They must find drastic cuts to balance the state budget, or find revenue elsewhere. Most importantly, they must keep vital services while finding ways to cut the budget. One of the most important areas they have to trim involves our institutions of higher education, and so far they aren't doing so well.
According to a Palm Beach Post story, top researchers at our universities are pulling out and moving due to Florida's budget crisis. This means hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants, and all the revenue that such research brings to the state, are lost. Along with that lost money, we lose our best and brightest students to other universities where the best professors move to and take their grant money.
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