Florida
Stanley Tate's legacy seen in over 1.2 million Florida Prepaid families saving for college
The state of Florida lost a true visionary, entrepreneur and philanthropist with the recent passing of Stanley G. Tate. If the success of a person’s life is measured in part by the impact they have on others, we can celebrate the fact that Tate’s legacy lives on in the more than 1.2 million families who have been able to save affordably for postsecondary education or pursue higher education.
This is thanks to his founding of the Florida Prepaid College Plan and the Florida Prepaid College Foundation.
The Florida Prepaid College Plan was designed and funded by Tate in 1987, with $600,000 of his own money, to help make higher education affordable for Florida families. He understood on a personal level what it was like to struggle financially, having grown up “lower income” (his own words) in a one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment with his parents and two siblings.
Later he worked his way through college at the University of Florida.
More than three decades later, we can see that his vision was more than just to create a college savings plan. A father of three who made Miami home, Tate wanted to create a culture of hope and excellence for Florida families by putting postsecondary education within financial reach through affordable monthly payments toward future college tuition.
With the creation of the nonprofit arm of Florida Prepaid, the Florida Prepaid College Foundation, he also forged a path for businesses and other donors to provide college scholarships to deserving students whose families cannot afford to save.
In 2002, under Tate’s leadership, the board created the Florida 529 Savings Plan to provide families another way to save for college tuition, fees, housing and other college expenses.
A multimillionaire builder, Tate truly never stopped working to help as many Florida families as possible find a path to college. He often called Florida Prepaid “the biggest single success I ever had.” The numbers confirm this legacy.
Since 1988, Florida Prepaid has helped about 1.26 million families prepare financially for postsecondary education. The program is the largest and longest-running of its kind in the nation, and the 529 Savings Plan has been awarded a medal by Morningstar for three years running.
More than 626,000 students have attended college using Prepaid Plans. In addition, there are over 158,000 active Florida 529 Savings Plan accounts with about $1.4 billion in assets under management.
But to know Tate is to know that he would look at these numbers and insist there is more work to do. He wanted every able family in Florida to save something for college and to provide more scholarships to deserving students in need.
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The best thing we can do as the Florida Prepaid College Board to honor Tate’s college savings legacy is to keep our eyes focused on the mission of helping as many Florida families as possible save affordably for postsecondary education. The best thing businesses can do is to explore the 1:1 match available through the Florida Prepaid College Foundation.
The match doubles the impact of their scholarship gifts and helps more deserving students.
And if you’re a Florida family not yet saving for college, the best thing you can do to thank Tate for his efforts is to get started. Nothing would make him happier.
John Rood is chairman of the Florida Prepaid College Board. He lives in Jacksonville.
This guest column is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome a diversity of opinions.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Helping others save for college was mission of Florida Prepaid founder
Florida
Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’
It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.
Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.
But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.
William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.
Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.
Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.
“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.
“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”
The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.
He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.
At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”
Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.
Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.
Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.
“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.
That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”
In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.
“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”
Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.
Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.
Florida
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Florida
Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip
Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.
“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.
“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.
Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”
The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.
“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”
That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.
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