ABSTRACT
The message here is simple: the shortcomings of higher education are due primarily to lack of direction or wrong direction at the policy level. This deficiency is carried down to administrators and through administrators to faculty and students. Unfortunately, this condition has existed for some time, and higher education in Florida is already well behind the level found in comparable states; to achieve progress, a sharp turnaround is necessary at all levels. The intellectual Zeitgeist, to paraphrase a former Texas administrator, has been wrong, but in the interests of creating a tourists’ dream Florida has already attempted to disassociate itself from the antieducational biases of much of the old South. Unfortunately, despite the northern influences educational interest has remained at a low level. The retirement mentality toward education of second generation children may now be largely over, and the State may indeed be able to continue its recent very modest gains and reach some sort of takeoff level of development.
