In June 2022, Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, approved $33 million in the FY 2022-23 budget for the USF Health College of Nursing to expand its infrastructure and current footprint on USF’s Tampa campus with enhanced simulation training space.

In September 2023, Tampa General Hospital announced its investing $4.4 million over six years. The funding supports the planning, construction, and implementation of a brand new lab, which will be named the Tampa General Hospital USF Health College of Nursing Simulation Center. It will include 12 clinical examination rooms, four simulation learning labs, a multipurpose learning lab, six high-fidelity simulation rooms, six debriefing classrooms and six control rooms. Simulated scenarios will enable nursing students to practice vital signs and patient safety, transitions of care, medicine administration safety, sepsis identification, communication with patients and family teaching, health assessment skills, prioritization of care, recognition of deteriorating patients and calls for help.

In Spring 2025, the USF College of Nursing graduated a record 247 prelicensure undergraduate nurses — a nearly 45% increase since 2023 — marking major progress in addressing Florida’s nursing shortage. With a new simulation and learning facility opening in 2026. This expansion will allow USF to increase undergraduate nursing enrollment on the Tampa Campus to 500 students by 2028, reinforcing the university’s leadership in meeting the state’s growing demand for qualified nurses.