Corcoran wastes $23 million on housing but builds ZERO new dorms
Richard Corcoran has wasted more than $23 million on temporary student housing, but has not built a single new dorm.
New College needs another 200+ beds to meet their housing goals, even after accounting for the USF Sarasota-Manatee dorms that the Florida legislature is giving New College.
For the same money he spent on temporary housing, he could have instead renovated the 250 beds in the existing Pei dorms to make those usable again, or built brand new dorms with 200+ beds.
Instead, all of that money is gone, and New College never proposed building new dorms to its Board of Trustees.
Even more galling, Corcoran moved $2.5 million from its housing fund to instead pay for a baseball field, bringing to mind the absurd focus on sports that John Oliver highlighted in his recent Last Week Tonight segment on New College.
As Richard Corcoran took over at New College in spring 2023, a housing crisis began when mold was found in the Pei Dorms. A large segment of students at this small residential college have been housed at off-campus at hotels and other temporary housing.
In 2023, Corcoran estimated the cost to ready the 250 beds in the Pei dorms at between $24 million and $30 million (see page 49 of https://www.flbog.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/NCF-Business-Plan-.pdf). That works out to between $96,000 and $120,000 per bed.
A 2023 report from UNF compiles recent costs to build dorms in Florida, and shows many relevant Florida dorms built with the cost around $105,000 per bed. This is also in line with a 2024 FAMU dorm project which was 75 million for 700 beds, or $107,000 per bed.
Using $110,000 per bed as a reasonable estimate, Corcoran could have built over 200 brand new dorm beds with the $23 million he spent – but instead, he has built zero new dorms.
Here is a breakdown of the temporary housing costs by year:
2023-2024 school year: $8.1 million
2024-2025 school year: $6.9 million
2025-2026 school year: $6.6 million
2026-2027: $1.6 million
Hotels: $1,549,800 (source)
Corcoran has repeatedly said he’s going to build new dorms, pushing back his estimated start date multiple times for even beginning to build new dorms, from his initial Spring 2025 projection to now projecting December 2026 – but since Corcoran has never actually brought a proposal to the New College Board of Trustees to fund or build new dorms, these estimated start dates should be viewed as more performance than plan.
