The "Haves and Have nots": FAMU trustee overlooks state's historic funding disparities

The Florida Legislature is poised to vote this week on a FY25-26 budget and bring an end to this year’s extended legislative session. 

The budget bill includes a provision allowing FAMU’s Board of Trustees to fund the salary of President-select Marva Johnson, whose hiring has sparked severe backlash in the FAMU community.   

The budget also simultaneously slashes additional preeminence funding for the state’s top-tier (no four) universities from $100 million to $40 million.

 

Preeminence funding cuts hit top Schools
Preeminence funding, is reserved for universities meeting strict academic benchmarks, previously allocated $25 million each to the University of Florida (UF), Florida State University (FSU), the University of South Florida (USF), and Florida International University (FIU) from a $100 million pool. Under the new budget, each institution would receive just $10 million—a 60% reduction from last year—despite the Florida Board of Governors’ request to maintain the $100 million allocation.

 

Faculty trustee highlights salary gaps, ignites debate
The cuts come amid heightened scrutiny from FAMU Faculty Trustee Jamal Brown, who recently criticized salary disparities between FAMU and other state universities. However, critics argue Brown omitted critical context: between 2014–2019, UF and FSU each received an additional $61.9 million in state preeminence funds atop their operating budgets, and their annual performance-based funding allocations.   

Since 2023 FSU and UF have each received an additional $50 million in preeminence funding.

 

These funds enabled UF and FSU to hire top faculty, reduce teaching loads, and boost research,  and increase their faculty salaries --widening salary gaps-- with under-resourced institutions like FAMU.   

 

The funding disparity is most starkly evident at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. FSU’s access to preeminence program funding has enabled substantial investments in faculty development, including the FSU’s focus on hiring additional focus in hiring specific positions at the joint school, as well as providing their students with scholarship opportunities unavailable to their FAMU counterparts. This financial advantage has further allowed FSU to actively recruit high-achieving FAMU engineering students—both undergraduate and graduates—to transfer their enrollment to FSU, exacerbating inequities in resources and academic opportunities between the partner institutions.

 

Brown’s, seems to have forgotten, that FAMU, for years, received zero dollars under Florida’s performance-based funding model.

 

Operational funding disparities persist
In 2024, the legislature distributed $389 million in recurring operational enhancement funds, with UF receiving $97.8 million, FSU $60.7 million, USF $50 million, $FIU $35 million, $FGCU $20 million, UCF $30 million, UNF $25 million, NCF $25 million, UWF $21.5 million,  compared to FAMU’s $10 million. This operational funding—layered atop preeminence and performance-based dollars for larger schools—has deepened systemic inequities. 

Decades of underfunding compound FAMU’s challenges

The U.S. Department of Education has previously accused Florida of underfunding FAMU by nearly $2 billion compared to UF, the state’s other land-grant university.

Since 1960 Florida created seven new universities, diverting resources from FAMU. Today, the university faces a staggering $212 million in deferred maintenance, including crumbling infrastructure like the Dyson Building and Benjamin Banneker Complex.

“FAMU’s challenges aren’t about mismanagement—they’re about decades of neglect,” said a coalition of HBCU advocates. While Brown’s salary comparisons spotlight salary inequities, he fails to address the root cause -- the historic underfunding.

 

Although FAMU has consistently excels in the U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) rankings, the university does not earn points on the State University System performance funding metrics for outperforming its public HBCU counterparts. Furthermore, unlike FSU, USF, & UF, FAMU has not received any additional state funding bolster its standings (relative to other HBCUs) nationwide, whether public or private institutions in the USNWR rankings.

 

Mr. Brown's salary argument makes a good soundbite, but it is disingenuous, he understands FAMU cannot compete on equal footing without equal funding.