ICUF Advocacy
The Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida serves as the collective voice for the state’s 30 private non-profit colleges and universities. ICUF advocates for our students and our schools at the state and federal levels on a wide range of issues that affects our member institutions.
Student aid is our Number One priority. In particular, ICUF works to ensure that the state’s Effective Access to Student Education Grant (EASE) is properly funded. The EASE Grant supports students at ICUF member institutions. More than 46,000 students a year receive the grant.
In the more than four decades since EASE was established, hundreds of thousands of Florida families have been able to attend college, earn their degree, launch a career and provide for their families.
With EASE, state funding follows the student. EASE provides tuition assistance to students who attend independent, nonprofit colleges, no matter where in Florida they choose to go.
Did You Know?
Florida’s independent colleges and universities are a far more efficient investment of taxpayer dollars than public universities.
- For every $1 million of taxpayer dollars invested in Florida’s independent colleges and universities, these institutions produce 305 degrees every year.
- For the same investment of taxpayer dollars in Florida’s State University System, those schools produce 41 degrees.
- If Florida’s independent colleges and universities were eliminated, Florida taxpayers would have to build two new public universities to accommodate all of these students interested in pursuing higher education.
- Alternatively, those students would take their money, their future careers and their future economic impact to foreign states.