South Floridas state universities have added faculty, classes, research and technology after receiving millions of bonus dollars from the state.

Students at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton can expect more instructors and more summer classes. At Florida International University, there will be increased career services for students, including a free post-graduation career course. The Honors Program will be expanded and more scholarships will be offered to undergraduates as well as medical and law students.

The money comes from the $121 million that the Legislature allocated for a world class faculty and scholar program and to improve the states medical, law and business graduate schools. FAU got $6.6 million; FIU got $16 million.

The schools presidents sent letters to Gov. Rick Scott this week explaining how they were using the funds.

Our administrators, faculty and staff continue to work with passion and focus to find new efficiencies and guide our students toward success, first in their academic experience and later in their chosen career, FAU President John Kelly wrote.

He said new faculty were added to work in areas that are a major focus for FAU, including neuroscience, ocean and environmental science and engineering. That has enabled FAU to add more courses, especially in the summer, where credit hours have increased by 10 percent in recent years.

Kelly said he wants to support efforts to increase student success. In recent years, the university has added more counselors and math tutoring programs, while updating its software to better track how students are doing. The efforts have helped FAU increase its graduation rates from 40 percent to 49 percent in the past three years.

The university also wants to expand research opportunities for students. After Kelly arrived in 2014, he initiated a program where undergraduate students work with faculty to conduct research. He said FAU students have been involved in 4,500 research experiences in the past year. He also wants to provide more stipends for graduate students to conduct research.

FIU is using its $16 million mostly on one-time investments to improve graduation rates and faculty recruitment and retention, President Mark Rosenberg said.

This is a holistic approach to ensuring we graduate our students on time, help them succeed in finding a great job and career path, providing world class graduate and professional school opportunities and recruiting and retaining faculty who are excellent teachers and researchers, Rosenberg said.

The $121 million in statewide funding was included in the $82 billion state budget for 2017-18, but a shadow was cast over the new programs when Scott vetoed a policy bill that would have made more permanent the world-class scholar and graduate-school initiatives.

In a letter to each university last month, Scott urged the schools to spend the funds judiciously and invest this funding in initiatives that will help your students graduate in four years with less debt and the ability to get a great job.

And he noted that although the programs were designed to be in place for subsequent years, funding for the future was uncertain.

The News Service of South Florida contributed to this report.

stravis@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6637 or Twitter @smtravis

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New money means new faculty and technology at FAU, FIU - Sun Sentinel