Perspective: Growth strategy

more mature and career-advanced students. According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, fall enrollment for women over 30 years in undergraduate programs fell 3.3% and for men over 30, enrollment fell by almost 7%. Several institutions have since confirmed plans to enhance or deliver new adult education programs.

And higher education institutions are playing to their strengths to continue generating new revenue to stay afloat.

At Saint Leo University in Pasco County, a new esports team and designated esports area have been launched, recognizing the potential of the multibillion-dollar industry. An inherently innovative institution, the university has also launched an autonomous vehicle and two new STEM degrees for programming and robotics. Sticking to a more traditional route to increased funding, USF is relying on its healthcare research and was recently awarded a national grant of $44.4 million by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging for the school’s Alzheimer’s study. The University’s College of Engineering also signed an $85 million contract with U.S. Special Operations Command last February. And in February both the Hillsborough County School District and Hillsborough Community College received funding from a $10 million grant program to start expanding apprenticeship programs.

Keith Wade

President & CEO – Webber International University One of the conversations that you have as a college president is that there’s an expectation that you will be somehow expanding, and I’m not sure that we want 5,000 people on this campus. It’s not challenging to pull off but, at some point, you lose your uniqueness. The professors know their students here. They will walk into the cafeteria and connect. I don’t think our desire is to be huge, and everything to everybody. We’ve added some degrees that are within our competency to do and that have been demanded by the general public.

Higher education Florida’s higher education system is made up of about 230 colleges and universities, of which about half are for-profit private institutions and 18% are public institutions. In 2019, just under 50,000 degrees were awarded by universities in the Tampa-St. PetersburgClearwater area. By far, the most degrees were awarded by USF, accounting for over 26% of degrees awarded. Public education is favored in the area, with public four-year and two-year colleges accounting for about 63% of the student body. The student population that year totaled around 165,000, with around 65% of the student population being women. About 50% of those students graduating from universities in the area were white, followed by around 18.5% Black or African American and 17.2% Hispanic or Latino. The median tuition costs in the area are just over $23,000 for a private four-year college, just over $3,000 for a public four-year college for an in-state student and just over $12,000 for an out-of-state student. Florida has the second-lowest in-state college tuition fees in the country at an average of $6,360.

In Tampa, about 40% of the population has a bachelor’s degree or higher, around 25% has graduated high school or has a GED and about 24% has some college or associate’s degree. The proportion of Tampa residents who hold a bachelor’s degree is higher than the U.S. average of 32% and the state average of 30%. The Tampa Bay metro area is home to some of the most prestigious colleges on a national level, including the University of South Florida, ranked 103 nationally, the University of Tampa, ranked 13 in southern regional universities and Saint Leo University, which comes in at No. 26 in southern regional universities.

Saint Leo University is also ranked by Niche as the third-most diverse college in Florida and USF comes ( )