Higher ed officials may have given Florida Republicans another tool to attack curricula

Florida Republicans may have contrived a new method of targeting lesson plans they don’t like.

Amid his obsessive war on so-called wokeness in schools (i.e., learning plans that acknowledge inequality and the humanity of racial minorities and LGBTQ people), Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has repeatedly taken potshots at students who get degrees — particularly, liberal arts degrees — in fields he has suggested are fruitless.

That was the impetus for this attempt at comedy, in which he mocked people for majoring in “zombie studies,” and this quote telling people to “go to Berkeley” if they want to study “gender ideology.”

Last week, the Florida Phoenix reported on a new pilot program approved by the state’s Board of Governors, the body that oversees Florida’s colleges and universities, to conduct an evaluation of a select group of five undergraduate programs related to the “operational costs, student outcomes, and return on investment (ROI) of each program.” According to a recent request for proposals, the board seeks a vendor to evaluate computer science, civil engineering, finance, nursing and women/gender studies programs at various Florida schools.

The Phoenix noted that Florida Republicans already have tried to ban ethnic studies and gender studies degree programs in the state. And a Democratic state lawmaker, Rep. Anna Eskamami, told the outlet that the ROI evaluation could be a way to revive the discussion:

The timing for it, too, from my lens, seems to be designed for there to be a bogus ROI calculation that would lead to the release of some sort of report by the middle of legislative session, which they would then use to eliminate funding for Women and Gender studies.

That certainly seems plausible. After all, evaluating the “return on investment” a degree program supposedly provides seems like a recipe for oversimplifying the college experience in a way that ultimately leads to the demonization of some programs (which, as I’ve noted, has been a persistent goal of Florida Republicans).

Florida’s board say it’s basing this proposal on a similar, Deloitte-commissioned study conducted at the University of North Carolina, which focused heavily on earnings — but that study’s methodology has come under scrutiny. And that underscores another point: Earnings probably aren’t the best method of determining whether a degree program is worthwhile anyway. I’d argue that choice of degree is just one of several factors that can determine one’s earnings down the line — and not the most significant one.

Nonetheless, let’s put a pin in this story and return to it if and when this new study drops, shall we?

I suppose it’s technically possible that the state hires an impartial vendor that can accurately measure the value of the degree programs in question — and doesn’t condemn the same programs that Florida Republicans have already attacked.

But the Florida GOP has given us no reason to assume that’s actually going to be the result here.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com

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