I Was There: New College of Florida, Manufactured Narratives, and the Politics of Decline
I was there last week, meeting with students and faculty who tell a much different story than the one offered by Trustee Lance Karp—a story that Brian Cody now vehemently critiques with data.
What I encountered on the ground was not a campus experiencing renewal or “momentum,” but one grappling with dislocation, loss, and profound uncertainty. Students spoke of instability in housing, disrupted academic pathways, and a palpable sense that the institution they chose—or once knew—was slipping away. Faculty described conditions of constraint, attrition, and a steady erosion of shared governance. These are not abstract concerns. They are lived realities.
Against this backdrop, Karp’s recent defense of New College reads less like an account of institutional health and more like an attempt to manufacture it.
Cody’s analysis cuts through this narrative with empirical clarity. Since Richard Corcoran’s takeover in 2023, New College has experienced measurable declines across key indicators: falling SAT scores, lower incoming GPAs, a dramatic drop in national rankings, and stagnating—or declining—enrollment among first-time-in-college students. At the same time, the institution is facing what can only be described as a self-created housing crisis, with roughly 40 percent of students relegated to hotels and off-campus accommodations despite millions in state funding allocated for housing. These are not the markers of a thriving honors college. They are signs of institutional distress.
And yet, rather than addressing these issues, current proposals seek to expand New College’s footprint by absorbing the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus—effectively transferring resources and infrastructure to an institution that, by all available evidence, is struggling to sustain itself. That this proposal is moving forward in the face of opposition from elected officials and regional stakeholders only underscores the extent to which political priorities—not educational outcomes—are driving decision-making.
What we are witnessing here is not simply mismanagement. It is something more systemic: the fake production of manufactured momentum under conditions of decline.
This is where the story connects to a broader national pattern. As we have seen in Texas and Florida alike, governance interventions in higher education are increasingly accompanied by narrative interventions—claims of success, renewal, or correction that are not borne out by the data, but are nonetheless mobilized to justify further restructuring.
The result is a kind of “policy theater,” if you will, in which institutional deterioration is reframed as transformation, echoing Nathan Allen's allegation of President Corcoran's "performative accounting" (Valenzuela, 2026). Expressed differently, policy theater, of which performative accounting is a part, functions as a mechanism of concealment—masking decline with carefully curated narratives that justify continued political control.
And importantly, this dynamic does not operate in isolation. It coexists with—and is reinforced by—what I have called shadow censorship. When faculty are marginalized, governance structures weakened, and institutional futures tied to political agendas, the space for dissent narrows. The ability to publicly challenge these narratives diminishes. Silence, in such contexts, is not accidental—it is produced.
That is why Cody’s intervention matters. It restores something that is increasingly under threat: accountability grounded in evidence.
Because without that, we are left with narratives untethered from reality—narratives that can justify not only the dismantling of institutions, but their reconfiguration in ways that may be far more difficult to undo.
Valenzuela, A. (2026, March 20). Institutional matricide beneath the banyans: The unmaking of an alma mater, the New College of Florida, Educational Equity, Politics, and Policy in Texas. Brian Cody: New College Failures vs. Manufactured Momentum
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| Brian Cody |
Last week, in response to the premiere of a new documentary about New College of Florida, Trustee Lance Karp offered a defense of the college that lacked any actual evidence. The timing of his response also suggests the college is trying to revive energy around a bill that would shut down the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus and transfer its property and debt to New College. Let’s look at some actual facts.
Since Richard Corcoran took over in early 2023, New College has seen a:
— Drastic decline in SAT scores for the incoming class, dropping from an average of 1233 the year before Corcoran arrived, down to 1153 in Fall 2024.
— Sharp downturn in high school GPA for the entering class: before Corcoran, 55% of FTIC students had a 4.0 or higher; after Corcoran, only 41% had a 4.0 GPA or higher. This is a major problem, given that New College is“the legislatively designated Honors College of Florida,” yet it seems to be struggling to recruit honors students.
— Nosedive in the U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, dropping 59 spots, so New College is no longer even in the top 100.
— Drop in FTIC (first time in college) students this year, reporting only 183 FTIC students in Fall 2025 compared to 188 the year before Corcoran arrived, a decrease likely due to the focus on recruiting out-of-state transfer athletes rather than academically excellent FTIC Florida students.
— Self-perpetuated housing crisis with 40% of the student body living in hotels and off-campus housing — despite receiving $20 million in taxpayer money for student housing. Karp, along with most of the New College trustees, has not voted to construct new permanent dorms at any time in the last three years. He has been content with approving payment for hotels and temporary housing rather than actually fixing the problem. This is a self-created housing crisis, and stealing dorms from USF Sarasota-Manatee doesn’t solve it.
Elected officials, including House Rep. James Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, as well as the Manatee County Chamber of Commerce, have all raised concerns about the bill, which would result in USF Sarasota-Manatee being shut down. New College is a school being run poorly, and its leadership should not be rewarded, especially not in ways that hurt USF and the Sarasota-Manatee region.
It is notable that Karp and the rest of the New College trustees have met half as often as their counterparts at USF (11 Board and Committee meetings at New College this academic year compared to 21 at USF). This absentee trusteeism means the Legislature needs to step in to keep the wheels from coming off at New College, not penalize USF and the entire Sarasota-Manatee region to reward New College’s self-created problems.
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