The St. Pete Times picked up on the regional and funding issues at stake in the debate over the new USF campus proposed for north Lakeland with a big splash on A1 Sunday.

It covers some of the same ground that The Tribune has covered over the past year, as you can see from the stories below, with the most recent on top:

The Debate Over USF Polytechnic

Polk County: Where Regions Collide

New USF Campus To Get Technical

The key issue surrounding USF-Lakeland is this: Does it make sense to begin building a new, fairly independent campus at a time that the state’s traditional higher education providers are struggling under budget cuts? If so, why?

Here’s how The Times puts it:

With a price tag of up to $200-million, the branch campus is slated to serve an eventual population that would make it larger than four of the state’s 11 four-year universities.

But is the demand really there?

The Times story points to enrollment growth rates at the existing campus that don’t get the new campus to its envisioned capacity of 16,000 students until 2043. Supporters counter that the new campus will be a magnet for students and the growth at the existing campus isn’t a reasonable judge of future growth.

Here are a couple of thoughts:

1) One might get the impression from the Times passage above that the state is about to spend $200 million for a fully-formed campus capable of handling 16,000 students. That’s not the case. Only $15 million in state money is currently budgeted to begin construction of a single building at the proposed I-4 site. Polk County and the city of Lakeland have both pledged $5 million, which makes the campus eligible for an additional $10 million in state economic development funds.

2) Campus officials say they know state money will be difficult to come by in the future, and they are looking to grow through private donations and investment. Here’s a key passage from a story I did earlier this spring.

In 2007, supporters thought they were on track to kick-start the new campus, but Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed $10 million for the project, sending the process back to square one.

[USF Lakeland CEO] Marshall Goodman said Crist’s veto, never clearly explained, cost far more than $10 million. It cast a pall of uncertainty across the vision for USF Polytechnic and made potential donors hesitate.

“It put a question mark in a lot of people’s minds,” Goodman said.

Private donations are vital because of money questions raised by the board of governors and others. Goodman said USF Polytechnic can’t rely on the state to help it grow. He said the campus’s applied science focus will make it a magnet for private investment in research and work force development.

3) This didn’t just happen. The new Lakeland campus has been working its way through the state process since at least 2001. It’s not something that lawmakers and USF officials snuck into a budget or large education bill. There have been many, many public hearings, meetings and votes leading to this point.

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