Florida Governor Ron DeSantis offered incentives for Jewish students worried about antisemitism to attend the state’s universities, extending a key pro-Israel theme of his long-shot US presidential campaign.
Florida’s public colleges will waive minimum credit requirements and offer in-state tuition for financially strapped Jewish students who want to transfer from schools in other states, according to an emergency order released Tuesday. DeSantis, who announced the plan in his state of the state address to legislators, described antisemitism as rampant and even condoned on US college campuses.
“Over the coming months, they will have a tough decision to make – pack up and leave or stay and endure continued hatred,” DeSantis said, referring to Jewish students in other states. “If they do decide to come to Florida, we will welcome them with open arms.”
The comments add to criticisms DeSantis has directed at universities in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack as he tries to position himself as the most pro-Israel candidate in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. The governor, who is well behind frontrunner Donald Trump in most polls, has campaigned on promises to mitigate antisemitism, particularly on college campuses, to bolster support from Jewish voters.
US universities have been grappling with surging tensions since the Hamas attack and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The Department of Education is handling more than two dozen investigations into complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia at Harvard University, Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Los Angeles and other colleges. The Education Department added Brown University to the list, which was updated Tuesday.
One elite college that has been lauded for keeping tensions surrounding the conflict lower than its Ivy League peers is Dartmouth College. On Wednesday, US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will participate in a discussion at the New Hampshire school with President Sian Leah Beilock and students. It’s part of Dartmouth Dialogues, a new initiative to facilitate conversations that bridge political and personal divides. They will discuss experiences on college campuses around events in the Middle East.
In Florida, the emergency order from the state university system requires that students seeking transfers demonstrate “a well-founded fear of persecution” based on their religion, citing rising incidents of antisemitism.
DeSantis didn’t say how much the program would cost or who will pay for it. Students could be charged far lower in-state tuition if they can’t afford out-of-state fees, implying a big subsidy from colleges financed in part by state taxpayers. At the University of Florida, for example, in-state tuition is $6,380 a year, less than a quarter of the $28,658 charged to students from other states.
Qualified students also could get waivers for the number of minimum credit-hours and for foreign language competency normally required of transfer students. DeSantis’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment about whether students fearing Islamophobic discrimination could qualify for the incentives
Uproar over antisemitic incidents culminated with a congressional hearing last month that turned into a public relations disaster for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania after they wouldn’t say that calling for genocide against Jews is a violation of university policy. Penn President Liz Magill stepped down days after the hearing, while Harvard’s Claudine Gay resigned last week under additional pressure from plagiarism allegations.
An Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International study released in November found that 73% of Jewish college students and 44% of non-Jewish students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the start of the school year.
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