Colleges across the country faced cuts and other changesin 2025, and Florida’s fourth-largest public university was no exception.
Federal funding cuts hit the University of South Florida much as they did other campuses, with researchers having to seek money from other sources, and students encountering higher fees and fewer resources for clubs and organizations.
USF has sought to boost revenue from other sources, and in many ways has succeeded. The school secureda record $750 million in research funding in 2025, according to a spokesperson. Additionally, USF gained more than $184 million in philanthropic support.
Additionally, the school has fortified its place among research institutions nationwide, ranking No. 2 among Florida’s public universities for active research activity, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
Here’s how USF, home to 50,000 students and driver of a $6 billion economic impact, saw the economic changes facing many colleges in 2025 play out on its campuses.
Federal funding was slashed
Federal grants have long been a major source of the university’s research funding, covering more than half of the $522 million spent on research in 2024, largely through agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation.
Early last year, President Donald Trump’s administration proposed slashing billions of dollars in funding for research institutions nationwide. USF received cancellation notices for 33 federal grants that had remaining commitments of $8.6 million dollars total last year, according to a spokesperson for the university.
NIH and the National Science Foundation cut programs they said were linked to “diversity, equity and inclusion, environmental justice and misinformation/disinformation.” And NIH announced it would cut the cap on certain reimbursements that organizations could request from federal sources — in USF’s case, by 70%.
In all, USF lost $13,839 in National Institutes of Health funding in 2025, with two grants frozen or canceled, according to the Science Impacts tracker.
Last week, a federal appeals court ruled the NIH can no longer cap such funding for all colleges, saying the move was illegal and violated the agency’s own regulatory procedures.
Student organizations lost money
USF’s Student Government decides how activity and service fees will be allocated for each department and student organization on campus.
Money unused from the year prior rolls over to the next year’s pot, but the university newspaper The Oracle reported these rollback funds are dwindling due to inflation and increasing minimum wage.
Because of this, USF’s student organizations saw their funding proactively slashed in half last year.
Departments supportedby the activity and service fees lost about $630,000, according to reports. The slash also left the university’s Student Government short nearly $2 million this spring. In the current school year, The Oracle reported that USF’s student organization budget dropped from $1.3 million to just under $1 million.
Just over $17 million in activity and service funding was allocated this school year: around $13 million for student programs and services for the general student body, just over $2 million for student government operations and just under $1 million for the rest of USF’s more than 350 student organizations. The remainder of the money was moved to reserve accounts for later use or emergencies.
Out-of-state fees jumped
For the first time in over a decade, some Florida universities hiked fees for nonresident students.
The 10% increase raised costs for USF undergraduate fees by about $35 per credit hour. For graduate students and nonresidents in certain programs, the price increased by more than $40 per credit hour. Some doctoral and physician assistant students saw their annual costs rise by as much as $2,900.
The hike came after Florida’s Board of Governors moved to allow universities to raise costs up to 10% last year and 15% this year. Four other universities — UF, Florida State University, Florida International University and the University of Central Florida — raised costs as well. A state analysis said the increase would raise more than $5 million, while the state estimated the increase would raise about $9 million for USF.
To help offset some of these costs, USF increased financial aid by about $2 per credit hour for both undergraduate and graduate students.
And another hike came this week. On Jan. 12, trustees approved raising nonresident fees an additional 15%. Over two years, this is a more than 26% increase — nearly $100 more in fees for undergraduates per credit hour and $112.49 for graduate students.
The increases have come as some students continue to struggle with the cost of tuition. With the end of a loan forgiveness program started under former President Joe Biden, delinquency reached pre-pandemic levels in 2025, according to the Urban Institute, with 1 in 6 Tampa Bay students behind on payments.