In one of the most tragic and sad stories in recent memory, it appears that Ben Sasse used his position as the president of the University of Florida to help himself and his friends, even as he vowed to provide much-needed reform to higher education.
Alligator News reported this month that the former senator turned former president of the University of Florida engaged in exorbitant spending during his brief 18-month stint at the head of Florida's flagship university.
Sasse's journey to Gainesville, Florida, began when he was reelected to a second term in the Senate in 2020. But rather than serve out the full six-year term that the people of Nebraska had elected him to, Sasse jumped ship and accepted the presidency of the University of Florida, having served just two years of his second six-year term.
But after only holding the job for 18 months, Sasse abruptly resigned last month. The cited reason was that he needed to spend more time with his wife, who is in ill health. But in the weeks following his resignation, reports have surfaced that he was, in fact, forced out by the university's board of trustees. Furthermore, it appears that he forced the university to hire his old Senate staff at salaries far above market value without requiring them to move to Florida.
For example, according to the report, Raymond Sass, who was Sasse's chief of staff in the Senate, became UF's vice president for innovation and partnerships and took home a salary of $396,000 — double his old salary in the Senate. Sasse's Senate communications director, James Wegmann, became the university's vice president of communications. His annual salary is more than $400,000, which he collected while living in Washington.
All in all, Sasse reportedly increased spending in the UF president's office by more than $10 million. In a lengthy statement on X, the now-former president of UF admitted that the massive increase in spending was real but that he was prepared to defend it and it was all approved by the university.
"Now, it is true that there was substantial funding for a number of important new initiatives," he said. "I am very happy to defend each and every one of these initiatives because from day one, the whole reason I agreed to leave a great job representing the salt-of-the-earth people of my home state of Nebraska is precisely because higher education needs massive reform. My views about this generational project have been public and obvious for a decade — there’s been no secret."
A spokesperson for the board of governors of the Florida state university system told me that "the State of Florida Auditor General’s office is conducting a regularly scheduled audit at the University of Florida" and that this audit will "encompass Office of the President expenditures."
Whether or not Sasse mishandled the finances of the University of Florida remains to be seen. But the decisions he made as the university's president raise serious concerns that must be addressed by officials in Florida.
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But even if it turns out Sasse did everything by the book, his personal judgement is in serious question. Reforming higher education did not require him to spend millions of dollars to increase the salaries of his former staff. It also did not require him to spend millions on expensive consultants or a threefold increase in travel expenditures for his office.
Those are the kinds of decisions that raise serious questions about the character and values of the person who made them. For Sasse, it may prove to be the final chapter of what has become a tragedy of a career.
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