Corcoran promises and fails to deliver new dorms again and again and again

Richard Corcoran has been president of New College since February 2023, so he’s well into his fourth year – yet the college still has a housing crisis. Students live off campus and in hotels, and the college doesn’t have enough beds to come anywhere close to its goal of 85% of students living on campus.

Corcoran has been promising to build new dorms at New College since 2024 – but as of June 2026, nothing has broken ground. There hasn’t even been a vote by the school’s Trustees on whether to build or fund any new dorms.

New College is taking over the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus which includes 200 dorms rooms – but New College is using ~150 of those beds already, so only netting 50 beds.

And in August of 2025, Corcoran said that even with all of the USF dorms, they still need another 200 beds to meet their needs – so even after getting the USF campus, New College is still in dire needs of more student housing.

This is a short timeline of Corcoran publicly promising that new dorms will be built soon – and thus a list of the times Corcoran has failed to do what he promised.

1. June 2023, Corcoran mentions should be fired if housing doesn’t go well

   1. "I assure you trustee Keenan we will not move forward in any way shape or form that does not adequately and completely improve the housing situation for our students" (source)
      "Let's just say hypothetically that – you guys chose me as interim president – and the worst case scenario that you could possibly anticipate happens, I would resign in disgrace or you guys should fire me on the spot." (source)

2. August 2024 - Corcoran says hoping to get new dorms underway in Spring 2025

   1. “Working backwards, we’d like to get started in the spring [of 2025] so I would say we’ll have another update at the October meeting” (source)

3. February 2025 - maybe in April 2025?

   1. “I’ll know more come April [2025]… So we need about 750 beds…” (source)

4. April 2025 - by September 2025?

   1. “…so hopefully what will come before you between now and September… we could expedite at least some housing along 58th street” (source)

5. August 2025 - definitely by December 2025.

   1. “In November or December… we’ll have another trustees meeting… my hope is you’re going to approve a master plan, you’re going to approve breaking ground on dorms…” (source)

6. May 2026 - maybe by December 2026?

   1. “The bids for the small dorms and the large dorms… hopefully break ground in December of this year [2026]” (source)