The Real Math on College Costs — and What Florida Is Getting Wrong

I spent much of my early life in Wisconsin, home to Kohl’s Department Store.  At Kohl’s, nobody pays the sticker price. There are always sales, coupons, loyalty discounts, and weekend specials layered on top of each other, and by the time you check out, you've paid roughly half of what the tag said. The whole system is engineered to make the discount feel like a deal – because that is what consumers love about Kohl’s. 

Private higher education works exactly the same way. According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, the average tuition discount rate at private nonprofit colleges reached 56.3% for first-time undergraduates in 2024-2025 – meaning that for every dollar of tuition charged, institutions gave back 56 cents in grants and scholarships. Nine in ten freshmen at private colleges receive institutional aid. The sticker price is, in the most literal sense, a fiction.

So when politicians and pundits declare that college costs are spiraling out of control, they are reading the tag, not the receipt. Sticker prices have risen. What families actually pay – net tuition – has been far more stable, and in inflation-adjusted terms at many institutions has effectively declined. The crisis in college affordability is real, but it is not primarily a pricing story. It is a perception story, built on a comparison that was never honest to begin with.

This matters enormously in Florida, where a deeply flawed comparison shapes how the state allocates its higher education dollars – to the detriment of Florida families, Florida taxpayers, and Florida's future.

Here is what the sticker price comparison actually conceals. When the Florida Legislature writes its higher education budget, it sends billions of dollars to the State University System. Those dollars are invisible subsidies – they don't show up in any tuition comparison, but they are just as real as a check written to a student. In 2023, the Legislature appropriated $3.6 billion to the SUS. The result: Florida resident students at public universities receive $15,129 in annual state support per student. An out-of-state student at a public university receives $4,889 in state support. A Florida resident who chooses a private university – one of the ICUF institutions – receives $3,500 through the EASE voucher, if they qualify.

Read that again. A student from Ohio attending a Florida public university receives more state support than a Florida resident attending a private university in their own state. The total value of state appropriations flowing to out-of-state students at Florida's public universities exceeds $369 million annually. Florida taxpayers are, in effect, subsidizing the education of students who will take their degrees and return home to Georgia, New York, and Texas.

Meanwhile, the private institutions serving Florida's own residents are producing results that would embarrass the comparison. With less than 2% of the state higher education budget, ICUF institutions produce 20% of all undergraduate degrees awarded in Florida — along with 28% of all nursing degrees, 25% of all teaching degrees, and more than half of all professional and graduate degrees. For every million dollars of state investment, ICUF institutions produce 265 degrees. The State University System produces 18. That is a 15-to-1 return on investment in favor of the private sector.

If ICUF's capacity disappeared tomorrow, the SUS would need to increase its spending by $5.9 billion and secure an additional $631 million in new legislative appropriations just to replace what private institutions currently deliver.

These are not arguments for defunding public universities. Florida's public institutions are national assets and serve a critical role. The argument is far simpler: the current funding structure does not reflect Florida's actual interests, and at a moment when the state faces fiscal headwinds, the return on investment should matter.

Florida is not a state of unlimited resources. Demographic shifts, federal funding uncertainty, and rising costs across state government mean that every appropriations decision now carries real consequence. In that environment, spending more than $369 million subsidizing out-of-state students – while giving Florida residents who choose private colleges a fraction of that support – is not a policy rooted in either efficiency or equity.

Private institutions like Saint Leo University exist to serve Florida's students. We are not asking for parity with the public system. We are asking for a funding conversation that is honest about the full picture – one that counts the billions in invisible subsidies, acknowledges the remarkable productivity of private higher education, and asks whether Florida's current priorities actually serve Florida's people.

The sticker price was never the real number. It's time Florida's higher education policy reflected that.

Jim Burkee, Ph.D., is president of Saint Leo University

See this article in the Tampa Bay Times