What are everyone's thoughts on UF (University of Florida)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

DeSantis is that you?

You think DeSantis would assert that he's "not a fan" of Florida, that there are several good reasons to avoid Florida universities, and that he's sending his own kid out of state for these reasons?

Or did you simply not read the actual words to which you were cleverly responding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

I don’t know why you keep saying adjuncts are worse than TAs. I disagree. TAs are graduate students, that isn’t who I want teaching my kids, they just graduated themselves. I would never send my kids to a college where they are being taught primarily by grad students.

Also, you know what’s better than having to tailor your schedule to avoid online classes? Attending a school that doesn’t rely heavily on online classes.


The better public schools, like UVA and UNC, have significantly higher endowments per student, $388,00 and $200,000 respectively. Even medium size privates are in the $200,000 to 300,000 range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

I don’t know why you keep saying adjuncts are worse than TAs. I disagree. TAs are graduate students, that isn’t who I want teaching my kids, they just graduated themselves. I would never send my kids to a college where they are being taught primarily by grad students.

Also, you know what’s better than having to tailor your schedule to avoid online classes? Attending a school that doesn’t rely heavily on online classes.


The better public schools, like UVA and UNC, have significantly higher endowments per student, $388,00 and $200,000 respectively. Even medium size privates are in the $200,000 to 300,000 range.

You're going to have to avoid research universities altogether, especially public research unis, if you want to entirely or easily avoid TAs. What you say above shows (maybe this is a useful exercise?) that you've effectively ruled out public research universities (and many private ones, too). I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid TAs, but this really isn't a problem specifically for UF.

But still, you've now ruled out UF, and for a legitimate reason -- congrats!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

I don’t know why you keep saying adjuncts are worse than TAs. I disagree. TAs are graduate students, that isn’t who I want teaching my kids, they just graduated themselves. I would never send my kids to a college where they are being taught primarily by grad students.

Also, you know what’s better than having to tailor your schedule to avoid online classes? Attending a school that doesn’t rely heavily on online classes.


The better public schools, like UVA and UNC, have significantly higher endowments per student, $388,00 and $200,000 respectively. Even medium size privates are in the $200,000 to 300,000 range.

You're going to have to avoid research universities altogether, especially public research unis, if you want to entirely or easily avoid TAs. What you say above shows (maybe this is a useful exercise?) that you've effectively ruled out public research universities (and many private ones, too). I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid TAs, but this really isn't a problem specifically for UF.

But still, you've now ruled out UF, and for a legitimate reason -- congrats!

Not really. Most of the good privates these days have professors teaching freshman undergrad. This is a public school issue, not a private research university one.
DD goes to Harvard and DS goes to Duke, neither have been taught by any grad students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

I don’t know why you keep saying adjuncts are worse than TAs. I disagree. TAs are graduate students, that isn’t who I want teaching my kids, they just graduated themselves. I would never send my kids to a college where they are being taught primarily by grad students.

Also, you know what’s better than having to tailor your schedule to avoid online classes? Attending a school that doesn’t rely heavily on online classes.


The better public schools, like UVA and UNC, have significantly higher endowments per student, $388,00 and $200,000 respectively. Even medium size privates are in the $200,000 to 300,000 range.

You're going to have to avoid research universities altogether, especially public research unis, if you want to entirely or easily avoid TAs. What you say above shows (maybe this is a useful exercise?) that you've effectively ruled out public research universities (and many private ones, too). I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid TAs, but this really isn't a problem specifically for UF.

But still, you've now ruled out UF, and for a legitimate reason -- congrats!

Not really. Most of the good privates these days have professors teaching freshman undergrad. This is a public school issue, not a private research university one.
DD goes to Harvard and DS goes to Duke, neither have been taught by any grad students.

Good for them. I'm sure you are proud. My DS loves UF and the profs and is being really challenged. Go Gators!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

I don’t know why you keep saying adjuncts are worse than TAs. I disagree. TAs are graduate students, that isn’t who I want teaching my kids, they just graduated themselves. I would never send my kids to a college where they are being taught primarily by grad students.

Also, you know what’s better than having to tailor your schedule to avoid online classes? Attending a school that doesn’t rely heavily on online classes.


The better public schools, like UVA and UNC, have significantly higher endowments per student, $388,00 and $200,000 respectively. Even medium size privates are in the $200,000 to 300,000 range.

You're going to have to avoid research universities altogether, especially public research unis, if you want to entirely or easily avoid TAs. What you say above shows (maybe this is a useful exercise?) that you've effectively ruled out public research universities (and many private ones, too). I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid TAs, but this really isn't a problem specifically for UF.

But still, you've now ruled out UF, and for a legitimate reason -- congrats!

Not really. Most of the good privates these days have professors teaching freshman undergrad. This is a public school issue, not a private research university one.
DD goes to Harvard and DS goes to Duke, neither have been taught by any grad students.

So your kids go to completely different colleges than the college the OP is asking about, but you felt the need to come on this thread to critique a school you have no personal affiliation with whatsoever. Interesting. I wonder why.

[Anonymous]

Every school will have their pros and cons. However, most kids that I know that actually go to or have attended UF in recent years have LOVED their experience there (for what it's worth). It is very tough to get into these days though. It is also easy to graduate in 3 years or in a dual Bachelors and Masters program in 4 years because they accept SO MANY credits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every school will have their pros and cons. However, most kids that I know that actually go to or have attended UF in recent years have LOVED their experience there (for what it's worth). It is very tough to get into these days though. It is also easy to graduate in 3 years or in a dual Bachelors and Masters program in 4 years because they accept SO MANY credits.

Accepting so many credits is yet another sign of a school that cares little about the quality of education it provides. But at least it’s cheap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school will have their pros and cons. However, most kids that I know that actually go to or have attended UF in recent years have LOVED their experience there (for what it's worth). It is very tough to get into these days though. It is also easy to graduate in 3 years or in a dual Bachelors and Masters program in 4 years because they accept SO MANY credits.

Accepting so many credits is yet another sign of a school that cares little about the quality of education it provides. But at least it’s cheap.

blah blah blah. Go find another thread to spread your salty tears.

[Anonymous]

I wish people stopped spending so much time trashing Florida schools. It is a nice system providing FL kids with a solid and low cost education. You do not need to come if you are not interested. I don't see anyone ever going against other much redder state schools. The obsession is clearly political, so just a reminder that over 40% of Florida voted for Harris, and we are one of the most diverse states in the country, full of people you claim to love: liberal people, minorities, immigrants. So stop the DeSantis obsession and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish people stopped spending so much time trashing Florida schools. It is a nice system providing FL kids with a solid and low cost education. You do not need to come if you are not interested. I don't see anyone ever going against other much redder state schools. The obsession is clearly political, so just a reminder that over 40% of Florida voted for Harris, and we are one of the most diverse states in the country, full of people you claim to love: liberal people, minorities, immigrants. So stop the DeSantis obsession and move on.

+1

Also worth noting that Florida's Bright Futures program is an incredible scholarship program. It pays 75-100% of college costs for high-performing students.

Sounds pretty f*ing progressive to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got in and really wants to attend, but I'm trying to push him to attend in-state (so surprisingly the OOS cost isn't too much higher than going in-state). Anyone with personal experience? What are the pros and cons? Is it easy to get back and forth for breaks? I've heard that the dorms kind of suck (i.e. communal showers) - but that its sort of like a "right of passage."

Pros - affordable for in-state, still relatively affordable for OOS compared to other schools, lots of school spirit
Cons - limited direct flights into Gainesville that are expensive, dorms are not very updated (freshman are allowed to live off campus), parking is difficult
Depends - online classes are common, big campus and enrollment, climate, very large Greek life presence, Gainesville

I guess all of these could be pros or cons depending on what your son is after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish people stopped spending so much time trashing Florida schools. It is a nice system providing FL kids with a solid and low cost education. You do not need to come if you are not interested. I don't see anyone ever going against other much redder state schools. The obsession is clearly political, so just a reminder that over 40% of Florida voted for Harris, and we are one of the most diverse states in the country, full of people you claim to love: liberal people, minorities, immigrants. So stop the DeSantis obsession and move on.

Well said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent whose kid got into UF but is going elsewhere, for the reasons I gave upthread. I gave several reasons to avoid UF, and FL universities, but what irritating about so much of the anti-FL animus on this thread is that it's inarticulate and apparently unreasoned. One commenter helpfully spelled out their reasons: too many online courses at UF, and too much TA dependence. Great, but when challenged, these apparent reasons seem to fall apart (as explained upthread). What's left? It looks like people just hate Florida and Floridians. Well, fine, go ahead and hate the nation's third largest state -- I'm not a fan of it either. But does that really help someone -- the OP, presumably -- wondering whether their kid should be interested in attending this particular university? Maybe start from the assumption that this person doesn't antecedently despise the state it's in?

I don’t think the online classes bit fell apart, there is the entire online freshman experience and then a bunch of online classes “normal” kids have to take, particularly for business majors. To my knowledge, Florida is atypical in this respect, the Arizona schools being the only other system to extensively use online classes.

Too much TA dependence didn’t fall apart either, the poster just said every state school does it which isn’t true.

Lastly, there is the truly laughable endowment of less than $50,000 per student to which no one responded and puts Florida in the cellar compared to a
alleged peer schools. And the curriculum changes imposed by DeSantis. Not to mention the grifting tenure of Ben Sasse as president.
Then there is the truly min

1. Online classes are an issue only if you can't easily avoid them. Maybe that's true in the business school -- I have no idea. If so, that's a strike against the UF business school.

2. Every public research university has TAs -- I'm sure just as many, in many cases more, than UF. I think "TA" is confusingly being used here to refer to adjuncts. If there are a lot of adjuncts, that's bad. My kid looked into this (with parental help), and there's no reason to think this is a problem at UF: in fact, we were impressed that UF has tenure-track faculty where many rival schools rely on adjuncts (e.g. in the music school, one of my kid's side-interests). Again, maybe in the business school has a problem here -- I have no idea.

3. UF's per-student endowment puts it above UMD, VT, and UGA, among other respectable public schools. It's not especially impressive, but endowment size is really only relevant for private universities.

4. I entirely agree about the political shenanigans. Is that a reason to avoid UF? It's just as bad in many other red states. My kid's leaving the country partly in order to avoid this nonsense, but I don't think it's decisive on its own.

I don’t know why you keep saying adjuncts are worse than TAs. I disagree. TAs are graduate students, that isn’t who I want teaching my kids, they just graduated themselves. I would never send my kids to a college where they are being taught primarily by grad students.

Also, you know what’s better than having to tailor your schedule to avoid online classes? Attending a school that doesn’t rely heavily on online classes.


The better public schools, like UVA and UNC, have significantly higher endowments per student, $388,00 and $200,000 respectively. Even medium size privates are in the $200,000 to 300,000 range.

You're going to have to avoid research universities altogether, especially public research unis, if you want to entirely or easily avoid TAs. What you say above shows (maybe this is a useful exercise?) that you've effectively ruled out public research universities (and many private ones, too). I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid TAs, but this really isn't a problem specifically for UF.

But still, you've now ruled out UF, and for a legitimate reason -- congrats!

Not really. Most of the good privates these days have professors teaching freshman undergrad. This is a public school issue, not a private research university one.
DD goes to Harvard and DS goes to Duke, neither have been taught by any grad students.

So your kids go to completely different colleges than the college the OP is asking about, but you felt the need to come on this thread to critique a school you have no personal affiliation with whatsoever. Interesting. I wonder why.

Honestly, maybe you have reading comprehension issues if you are "wondering" They said rule out private research universities too. Kiss my butt, weirdo.