Come fall, Santa Fe College will begin offering four-year degrees for the first time, which will put it in competition with UF for even more of the state's already-scarce funds.
After getting approval from Florida's Board of Education on Wednesday and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in December, Santa Fe has been cleared to offer bachelor's degrees in clinical laboratory science and health services administration.
All of Florida's 28 community colleges were given the option of offering four-year degrees after July 1, when a state law went into effect.
Santa Fe President Jackson Sasser said in order to get the degrees approved, the college had to prove they were in demand. Sasser said not only is the demand for graduates from these programs "off the charts," the degrees aren't offered at UF.
"Our best partner is the University of Florida, and we wouldn't compete," he said. "If this is something that they offered, we would not."
But not everyone is sold on four-year degrees from community colleges.
UF President Bernie Machen questioned their worth in a July Gainesville Sun article.
UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes said Machen was concerned about the lack of resources.
"His concern is that the Legislature is not going to allocate additional dollars," she said, adding that new four-year programs such as Santa Fe's will only stretch the limited funding currently available.
Machen did not respond to an e-mail sent Wednesday afternoon.
Sasser said Santa Fe hadn't determined how much money it would request from the state to help fund the new degrees and declined to give an estimate.
