Florida has been one of the states hit hardest by the recent financial crisis. Since 2007, Florida State University (FSU) administration says, the university's budget has been cut by over $38 million. The state budget approved by the legislature on May 8, 2009, requires FSU to make another cut of more than $43 million from the institution's 2009-10 budget and to cut $3.6 million from its medical school. In just a handful of years, the cuts will amount to about $82 million, a sum equal to more than 7 percent of FSU's 2008-09 operating budget. Furthermore, these cuts follow more than a decade of demands from the legislature that FSU accept more student applicants each year than the state is willing to fund--a practice that has been a substantial hidden budget cut. The author discusses the dramatic reductions in state funding for higher education in Florida and describes how the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) finds itself allied with the FSU administration in opposition to a common foe--the Florida legislature.