I do not read polling data or academic studies to understand where a region is going. I read land. I buy it in front of growth, stake capital, and build. I have been doing that in Sarasota and Manatee counties since 1984.

In four decades of homebuilding here, I have watched this region survive three recessions and two devastating housing crashes. Each time, it came back stronger. Why? Because the underlying demand never left. People keep choosing to live here. And increasingly, they are choosing to work here, raise families here, and build careers here.

That is not sentiment. That is a pattern.

Before I say anything about New College or USF, I want to say something about USF itself, because I mean it as a genuine compliment.

USF is making extraordinary decisions about its own future. The university is in the middle of a major capital program: a new on-campus football stadium, significant East campus infrastructure, and the Fletcher District, a 138-acre mixed-use development on its former golf course with hundreds of millions in public and private investment behind it. Across Fletcher Avenue, the former University Mall is being redeveloped as Rithim, a multi-billion-dollar project bringing housing, research, and entertainment to the surrounding corridor. USF’s annual economic impact now approaches $10 billion across Florida.

These are the decisions of an institution that knows where it is going and is committing fully to get there.

That is what serious institutions prepared to invest in their region do. They read where growth is going and align their assets to meet it.

It is also worth stating plainly: USF and New College are both public institutions. Public institutions carry a regional obligation. Florida’s university system exists to serve the people and communities that fund it. Taxpayers in Sarasota and Manatee counties deserve institutions aligned to where this region is going, not simply to where it has been.

Which is exactly why the debate about the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus deserves a different conversation than the one currently happening.

While USF deploys hundreds of millions into its Tampa campus, its Sarasota-Manatee satellite campus serves roughly 500 full-time students, some 60 miles away. That is not criticism of the people who teach and learn there. It is a structural observation. A 50,000-student system in the middle of the largest investment in its history does not depend on a small satellite campus for its identity or its future.

Sarasota and Manatee counties, on the other hand, are in the middle of something that does not happen often: genuine, sustained regional growth and transformation.

We are building for them. Projects like Sea Flower, Aqua by the Bay, North River Ranch and Lakewood Ranch all master-planned communities in Manatee County and Wellen Park, Sky Ranch in Sarasota to mention a few, reflect a pace of construction that has not let up in years. Growth at this velocity demands institutions that scale with it. A region competing nationally for employers, talent, and investment needs higher education that grows in ambition alongside it. The question is not whether the current footprint is adequate for today. It is whether it is positioned for what this region is becoming.

This brings me to New College.

Several years ago, New College was in serious trouble. Enrollment had collapsed. Facilities had deteriorated. The institution’s future was openly questioned in Tallahassee. Under Gov. Ron Desantis’ newly appointed leadership, that trajectory has reversed. Enrollment has surpassed 850 undergraduates. Athletics launched and are competing at the NAIA level. Washington Monthly ranked New College the number one public liberal arts residential college in the country three years in a row.

This is a growing institution finding its footing at exactly the right moment. And growth requires expansion. More students require more classrooms, more housing, and more laboratory space. A residential college on a fixed campus has a ceiling. The question is whether Florida plans for what comes next or wait until that ceiling becomes a crisis.

Here is the contrast that matters: USF is investing heavily in Tampa, and USF deserves full credit for the clarity of that vision. But a university making that kind of concentrated bet on its home campus does not simultaneously need to treat an underused satellite 60 miles away as untouchable. The scale does not support logic. The public obligation of each institution runs to the region it primarily serves.

USF’s primary obligation runs to Tampa Bay.

New College’s obligation runs to Sarasota / Manatee.

That is how a state university system is supposed to work, with each institution earning its place by serving its community with focus and distinction, not by holding territory for its own sake.

Serious people should be willing to have this conversation and find solutions. And let me be direct about what this transfer includes. All currently enrolled USF students are guaranteed the ability to complete their programs without disruption. That is non-negotiable and is clearly written into the transfer plan. Workforce programs serving this region’s healthcare and professional sectors, nursing, cybersecurity, accounting, must be preserved. This is also non-negotiable and both New College and State College of Florida are ready to make that happen.

I have spent more than four decades betting on this region with real capital. What that experience has taught me is this: the communities that win long-term are the ones that align their institutions toward the future. USF is doing that for Tampa, boldly and at scale. The question now is whether Sarasota and Manatee counties apply that same standard of thinking.

The time to act is now.

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Carlos Beruff is the founder and CEO of Medallion Home, a homebuilder serving Sarasota, Bradenton, and Parrish since 1984. He has served on the boards of the Citizens Insurance, State College of Florida, the Sarasota-Manatee Airport Authority, and the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

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