Students applying for scholarships that want to pursue degrees with low employment prospects, may have to change majors if they want state funding.
Florida lawmaker, Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala sponsored bill SB-86, which is on it’s way to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education after passing in the Senate Education Committee earlier this month.
Under the proposal, money from Florida’s Bright Futures Scholarship program would be exclusive to students who choose to pursue a degree from a list approved by the Board of Governors and Board of Education.
An initial version of the bill proposed that students who pursue degrees not on the list would be eligible for scholarship money up to a maximum of 60 credit hours – which is roughly half of a full four-year degree.
The Senate on Monday revised the proposal so that students pursuing such degrees would have scholarship money decreased by a set amount, WKMG-TV reported.
Those in opposition to the bill feel do not want government involved in where scholarship money is distributed and feel it will affect liberal arts degrees.
Baxley made good points in a letter he wrote to senators on Monday saying that he would like students to pursue their passions, but noted that “higher education comes at a significant cost to both students and taxpayers and there needs to be at least some element of career planning involved.”
“We have awakened a giant. We have to reconnect the education and economic model and we have begun that process,” Baxley wrote.
Could Gov. Ron DeSantis Be The Favorite GOP Front-Runner for 2024?
Thanks in part to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in his state, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is being discussed as a potential GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential race.
Gov. DeSantis decided not to lock down like most other states or enforce a state-wide mask mandate. This decision allowed businesses in Florida to flourish and schools to stay open all the while having better results than states such as California and New York who have had some of the strictest lockdowns which resulted in the tanking of their economies.
If those two other states weren’t doing poorly enough, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York now finds himself in the middle of a scandal involving a nursing home death cover-up where the numbers are much higher than reported. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California imposed some of the strictest lockdowns, including not allowing indoor or outdoor dining, but that didn’t stop him from having a nice dinner indoors with a large group and is now facing a recall in his state.
Politico reports:
“Ron DeSantis is having a moment with conservatives,” said Josh Holmes, a top adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “Part of this is liberals tried to cast this in the yin-and-yang comparison with Cuomo … It’s policy and it’s partly stylistic, the way he handles the news media and his blue-collar appeal.”
Early on in the pandemic, both Newsom and Cuomo won national praise for their handling of the pandemic while DeSantis was panned for his more economy-focused and laissez-faire approach — one closely aligned with Donald Trump’s response to the Covid-19 crisis. Now conservatives are relishing the contrast and holding up DeSantis as an example of effective governance.
But it’s the fight in DeSantis that has animated conservatives, said Holmes, pointing to a recent press conference DeSantis held to announce a proposal to crack down on Big Tech where, in accusing the news media of having double standards, he told a reporter at one point that “you can whiz on my leg but don’t tell me it’s raining.”
While Politico points out that DeSantis may not have nationwide popularity yet, he certainly seems headed that way and many people in other states are starting to take notice.
Report: Freedom-Loving FL and Locked-Down CA Both See 30 Percent Reduction in COVID Cases and Deaths
Despite widely different approaches towards COVID-19, both Florida and California have seen a 30 percent decrease in cases, deaths, and hospitalizations according to the Daily Mail.
While California Governor Gavin Newsom locked his state down, closing businesses and schools, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lifted his states’ restrictions early-on, and restaurants and schools have been open.
Studies have shown that stay-at-home orders and restrictions saved numerous lives, but that they might be less useful now as more of the population gains natural immunity through infection or immunity via vaccination – but that social distancing and masks are still necessary to continue driving down case and death rates…
According to The COVID Tracking Project, California and Florida are both reporting an average of between 200 cases and 400 cases per million people, and each have been seen declines over the last several days.
Both states followed a similar curve with a spike in cases around January 1 – as the winter surge led to rapidly rising rates of cases and deaths – with infections starting to tail off a few weeks later.
Governor DeSantis spoke with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo last weekend where he said Florida “focused on lifting people up” during the pandemic while other states that locked down are “putting people out of business.”
‘There’s a whole bunch of things we’ve been doing for COVID, but at the same time, we’ve lifted our state up, we’ve saved our economy and I think we’re going to be first out of gate once we are able to put COVID behind the country,’ he said.
Meanwhile, the campaign to recall Governor Newsom has obtained more than 1,500,000 signatures in its fight to remove the disgraced leader.
For the full report from the Daily Mail, click HERE.
