Florida colleges are getting back money the state had been holding on their behalf. This fall, the University of South Florida, Hillsborough College, and Polk State College each recovered abandoned funds through the Florida Division of Unclaimed Property. The recoveries came out of a public-awareness push by Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia, who held a press event on October 7, 2026, at USF's Tampa campus to urge residents and institutions to check for money owed to them, according to Fox 13 News. A search tied to that event turned up abandoned funds for all three schools.
Table of Contents
- What each college recovered
- Why a state holds money for a college in the first place
- Who else this affects
- How to check for abandoned funds
What each college recovered
USF was reunited with $73,651 in unclaimed funds. The university says the money will go toward student scholarships, according to Fox 13 News. Hillsborough College recovered $4,384 in previously abandoned funds from the state treasury, Fox 35 Orlando reported.
Polk State College recovered a smaller amount, $2,419, which it plans to direct to My Brother's Keeper, a campus program that provides food, hygiene items, referrals, and limited emergency financial aid, per Fox 13 News. The three amounts differ widely, from under $2,500 to over $73,000, which reflects how unclaimed property accumulates. A college can be listed as the owner of record for anything from a single uncashed vendor check to years of stale refunds, scholarship disbursements, or vendor overpayments that were never cashed or returned.
Why a state holds money for a college in the first place
Unclaimed property is money or assets that a business, government agency, or individual held for someone else but lost contact with. Florida's Division of Unclaimed Property is currently holding about $3 billion in such funds belonging to residents and entities statewide, according to Fox 13 News. Colleges end up on that list the same way a person does.
A refund check mailed to an old address, a payroll check that was never deposited, or a vendor payment returned as undeliverable all get reported to the state treasury after a set dormancy period, rather than kept indefinitely by the institution that issued them. This isn't unique to the three schools named in the October event. The University of North Florida's own treasury office reports stale-dated checks to the state every year as a matter of routine, and it directs anyone looking for money owed to them to FLTreasureHunt.org, a state unclaimed-property search tool, according to the University of North Florida Treasury Office.
Who else this affects
The Department of Financial Services estimates that roughly 1 in 5 Floridians has unclaimed property waiting to be claimed, per Fox 35 Orlando. That scale means the same process behind the college recoveries applies to individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and other institutions across the state.
Public institutions can be owners of record just as easily as private individuals, per the University of North Florida Treasury Office. A church, a small business, a homeowners' association, or a local government office could each have money sitting in the same system that returned funds to USF, Hillsborough College, and Polk State College this fall.
- Individuals: old utility deposits, uncashed paychecks, forgotten bank accounts
- Businesses and nonprofits: vendor refunds, returned payments, dormant accounts
- Government and institutional entities: stale-dated checks, unclaimed grants, refunds mailed to outdated addresses
How to check for abandoned funds
The state promotes claimyourcashfl.gov as a free site where residents and institutions can search for and claim unclaimed property, according to Fox 35 Orlando. There is no fee to search or to file a claim through the state's own system.
To check your own name or an organization you're affiliated with: Institutions can follow the same path. A college, nonprofit, or business finance office can search its own name the way USF, Hillsborough College, and Polk State College did, and route any recovered funds according to its own policies, as Polk State College did by directing its recovery to My Brother's Keeper rather than a general fund.
- Go to claimyourcashfl.gov and search by name, including past addresses or former organization names if applicable
- If a match appears, follow the site's instructions to file a claim, which typically requires proof of identity or authority to claim on an entity's behalf
- Search variations of a name, since minor misspellings or old legal names can hide a match
- Check back periodically, since new property is reported to the state on an ongoing basis