Earlier this week, New College moved forward a plan to take on $47 million in risky debt. Paying back that debt rests on aggressive enrollment growth projections, but public records obtained by the Novo Collegian Alliance show the college is far behind its growth projections, making the debt an even more dubious proposition.
New College projected it would grow to 978 degree-seeking undergraduates, but the actual number is 902 – indicating only 37 more degree-seeking undergrads were added from Fall 2025 to Fall 2026.
Results of public records request indicating 902 degree seeking undergraduates in Fall 2026.
This makes a two-year trend where New College added fewer than forty new degree-seeking undergrads: in Fall 2025, New College only added 22 more undergraduates than the year before.
The NCA obtained this number via a public records request, and the result was so much lower than expected that we asked New College for clarification: “Could you please clarify if this includes both degree seeking undergraduates and non-degree seeking undergraduates? If so, we request the same information but narrowed to only degree seeking undergraduates.” The college confirmed: “The record provided only includes degree seeking undergraduates.”
In spite of this dismal growth, New College somehow projects they will go from a pattern of adding fewer than 40 students per year to adding almost 200 degree-seeking undergraduates, somehow magically increasing this number from 902 to 1,098.
Projected Enrollment for New College of Florida (source)
How did they grow enrollment after the January 2023 takeover? The Florida legislature gave New College $5 million for additional scholarships, and also gave tens of millions of dollars in non-recurring funding which New College used to build expensive sports programs - this worked to boost enrollment for Fall 2024. But since then, New College has failed to meaningfully increase undergraduate student enrollment.
In the materials for the November 2026 Board of Trustees meeting where the new debt package was approved, New College includes its enrollment projections as part of a housing study, and writes to the Board of Governors that “demand for on-campus housing will rise to 986 beds by Fall 2028, assuming New College meets its enrollment projection goals, which will exceed NCF’s current inventory (402 beds) by 584 beds” (p22).
It seems very unlikely that New College grow enrollment at this rate, given the lackluster growth over the past two years.
Given the college’s own trustees were not made aware of this enrollment slump in the materials they were given nor in the public meeting, we’re left to wonder if BankUnited is aware they’re lending $40MM to a school whose enrollment is already below projections?
Another unasked question is whether students will enroll at New College if they have to pay, especially given the debt package promises to increase New College’s student housing rates 25%+ over the next 4 years?
