General education has long been a battlefield for competing philosophies and interests in American colleges and universities. For decades, centrifugal forces in the academy have eroded the common academic experience students once received at most institutions of higher learning. Because all students are required to take a certain number of general-education courses to graduate, departments and professors understand that courses with that designation are likely to enroll more students than those without. Therefore, they have a powerful incentive to maximize the number of general-education courses they offer. Whether out of a sense of professional courtesy or as a result of informal dealmaking, academic departments often end up supporting each other’s proposals to add courses to the general-education roster. This proliferation is justified with the argument that the specific content of a general-education course is less important than the course’s inculcation of certain skills or competencies, such as critical thinking or familiarity with the scientific method.
Florida’s legislature has stated clearly that content matters in the general-education curriculum.
In 2023, Florida’s legislature passed a bill to reverse this trend. SB 266, among other things, created a new section of statute (1007.55) to regulate the general-education courses that each public college or university designates. It makes clear that the state’s goal is to produce informed citizens through their “participation in rigorous general education courses that promote and preserve the constitutional republic through traditional, historically accurate, and high-quality coursework.” Furthermore, general-education courses are to “provide broad, foundational knowledge” and not have curricula based on “unproven, speculative” content. Where applicable, the courses are required to teach “the historical background and philosophical foundation of Western civilization and this nation’s historical documents.”
Florida’s public colleges and universities now submit their proposed list of general-education courses for review annually to administrators in their respective state agencies to ensure the courses’ compliance with the statute. These reviews began in the fall of 2024 to approve courses ahead of university adoption for the 2025-26 academic year. Course reviews for 2026-27 are underway as of this writing.
This reform is still in its early stages, and some work remains to ensure proper implementation, but it seems clear that SB 266 has contributed to a more streamlined and rational general-education curriculum focused on the traditional liberal arts at Florida’s public colleges and universities. Traditional courses such as English composition, American history, and calculus remain in the curriculum. Upper-division courses and niche courses dealing with professors’ pet research projects are out. Also out are many lower-division courses that have no plausible connection to the goals articulated by the legislature. To take just one example, the trustees of one university recently removed from its general-education list a science course organized around the search for extraterrestrial life on the grounds that it was obviously based on speculative content. More generally, faculty are beginning to get the message that no single department can plausibly offer dozens of courses that could reasonably be classified as broad or foundational.
Not surprisingly, many faculty have complained, alleging that SB 266 infringes on their academic freedom and their “ownership” of the curriculum. However, none of the provisions on general education in the reform legislation violates any tenet of the traditional notion of academic freedom as expressed, for example, in the AAUP’s classic 1940 statement on the subject. And it should go without saying, but apparently cannot, that no professor has the right to have his or her course given preferential status via a general-education designation.
Florida’s legislature has stated clearly that content matters in the general-education curriculum, and other states such as Arkansas and Texas have begun to follow suit. These are courses that the state requires every student to take in order to graduate from its public colleges and universities, and it makes perfect sense to ensure, through legislation and regulation, that they advance the goals of taxpayers and their elected representatives rather than the narrow interests of the faculty lounge. Reform legislation such as SB 266 is not a silver bullet to restore the traditional liberal arts in higher education, but it is a step in the right direction.
Jason Jewell is chief academic officer and vice chancellor for strategic initiatives of the State University System of Florida.