Florida Nursing Programs — Dismissals, Probation & Appeals

Written by Zachary Gaynor, attorney · The Florida Bar, admitted 2016 · court admissions. Reviewed September 3, 2026.

Florida nursing programs: a dated probation snapshot

The list below records 36 programs as of September 3, 2026: 23 registered-nursing and 13 practical-nursing programs. It is a historical snapshot, not a live count. Program probation is separate from an individual student’s academic standing.

Source check: October 31, 2026. The Florida Department of Health nursing-program comparison tool says its data refreshes nightly and excludes terminated or closed programs. Check the exact program, location, and program type; absence from this tool does not establish a program’s operating status.

If your own progression or dismissal is at issue

Start with your decision notice and program rules. Preserve the handbook edition, effective date, progression requirements, and notices of changes. Ask which provisions the school applied and keep any conflicting versions. A program’s regulatory status alone does not establish why your decision was made.

Use the appeal preparation checklist to organize your documents. For help with your own situation, send your program, brief summary, and any deadline; keep sensitive records out of the initial message.

How Florida’s probation mechanism works

Under Fla. Stat. § 464.019, an approved program whose graduates’ first-time NCLEX passage rate falls below the statutory benchmark for two consecutive calendar years is placed on probation, and must remain there until the rate meets the benchmark. The benchmark is tied to the national average for first-time test takers.

For context, the 2025 national first-time pass rates were 86.71 per cent for the NCLEX-RN and 86.59 per cent for the NCLEX-PN, which put the Florida floor at roughly 76.7 per cent.

An important limit on the list below. The licensing record shows the status, not the statutory ground. Sub-threshold NCLEX passage is the most common cause of probation, but the record does not distinguish it from other grounds, and we have not assumed one. To establish why a particular program is on probation you need the Board’s order or its meeting minutes for that program. We have not inferred a reason for any school here, and neither should anyone else.

Registered-nursing programs recorded on probation (23)

• American College of Health & Sciences (Margate)
• Brilliant Academy Health Center (Orlando)
• Broward College (Coconut Creek)
• Chamberlain University, Miramar
• Daytona College (Ormond Beach)
• Florida National University Training Center (Hialeah)
• Florida National University (Miami)
• Fortis College (Cutler Bay)
• HCI College (Fort Lauderdale)
• Keiser University (Fort Myers)
• Keiser University (Miami, ADN)
• Keiser University (Pembroke Pines)
• Keiser University (Sarasota, ADN)
• Larkin School of Nursing (South Miami)
• Meridian West Central College (Sarasota)
• Miami Dade College School of Nursing (ADN)
• New Professions Technical Institute (Miami)
• Quest Nursing Education Center (Tampa)
• Riggs College of Allied Health (Longwood)
• South Florida State College (Avon Park)
• Southeastern College (Boynton Beach)
• Tallahassee State College
• Western Governors University (Orlando)

Practical-nursing programs recorded on probation (13)

• Brilliant Academy Health Center (Orlando)
• Chancellor Institute (Fort Lauderdale)
• Doxa Academy (Melbourne)
• Faith Academy (Tampa)
• Gwinnett Institute (Orlando)
• Hajgden International College (Orlando)
• Margate Medical Training Center
• Medical Institute of Palm Beach (Greenacres)
• Miami Dade College, Benjamin León School of Nursing
• Naples Nursing Academy
• Ridge Technical College (Winter Haven)
• Trinity Global College (Orlando)
• iTECH Glades Technical College (Moore Haven)

Source: Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance license verification, snapshot taken 3 September 2026. The dataset refreshes nightly and a program’s status can change at any Board meeting. Verify a current status directly before relying on it.

The largest nursing programs in Florida

Ranked by the number of Board-licensed program sites, which is a verifiable proxy for scale rather than an enrollment count: Keiser University operates 30 sites, more than twice any competitor, followed by Galen College of Nursing (14), Rasmussen University (12), Jersey College (11) and Herzing University (6). Nova Southeastern runs five, including direct-entry MSN programs at Miami and Fort Myers.

Four of Keiser’s campuses and one of Chamberlain’s two Florida sites appear on the probation list above.

The public universities

The prelicensure BSN programs at UF, FSU, USF, UCF, FIU, FAU, UNF, UWF, FGCU and FAMU are all recorded as accredited and none appears on the probation list. UF publishes by far the most complete public policy set of any Florida nursing school — separate documents for baccalaureate and DNP academic progression, course-progression improvement plans, grade appeals and student professionalism, each individually posted. For most of the others no public student handbook could be located, which is itself worth knowing: if you cannot read the policy, request it in writing and record the date you asked.

Note that DNP and post-licensure MSN tracks are not Board-licensed at all — they are accredited by CCNE or ACEN. A blank Board status for those programs is expected and is not a warning sign.

Two private universities have their own pages here as well: Nova Southeastern’s Ron and Kathy Assaf College of Nursing and the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies.

What usually ends a Florida nursing student’s program

• The exit-examination gate. ATI, HESI or Kaplan benchmark scores used as a condition of progression or graduation. Whether the published policy actually authorizes the use being made of the score is the first thing to check.
• Clinical failure and “unsafe practice” findings, which are disciplinary in substance but are frequently processed as academic decisions — which changes what procedural protections attach.
• Two-strike course rules, common in ADN programs, where a second failure in any nursing course ends enrollment.
• Accommodations in the clinical setting, where responsibility is split between the school and the placement site and each points at the other.
• The licensure shadow. How a dismissal is characterized in the record can follow a graduate into the Board’s licensure process long after the program ends.

The federal money behind Florida programs

Florida students and families took on $4.54 billion in federal Direct Loans in the 2025–26 award year, across 201 Florida institutions that participate in the federal aid programs.

Every dollar of it rides on academic standing. A dismissal, a failed Satisfactory Academic Progress evaluation, or a mid-term withdrawal sets off federal rules that decide whether aid continues, whether money already disbursed has to go back, and — under the borrowing caps in effect since July 1, 2026 — whether a student who leaves can still finance a return. For health-professional students the timing rules bite hardest: remediation terms, leaves, and repeated courses all feed the federal pace-of-completion math. The academic fight and the financial aid fight are the same fight, and the windows are short. How those rules work: SAP appeals and academic dismissal.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Data Center, Direct Loan volume by school, award year 2025–26 (cumulative through June 30, 2026). University-wide federal Direct Loan totals. Statewide total computed across all Florida institutions in the file.

Related reading

• Nursing school dismissal, clinical failures and appeals
• Health professions programs
• Disability accommodations under Section 504 and the ADA
• Academic dismissal and suspension
• All Florida schools

Pass rates, and the Florida nursing schools covered here

Start with the numbers. Eighty-two Florida nursing programs finished below the Fla. Stat. section 464.019 benchmark in 2025 — the full list, the statute, the two-consecutive-year probation rule, and the written-disclosure duty that a program on probation owes its students.

Institution pages for the standalone nursing and health-sciences schools, each built on that school’s own published policy:

• International College of Health Sciences — Boynton Beach; 514 first-time candidates in 2025 and no federal IPEDS record at all
• Galen College of Nursing — five Florida campuses; arbitration seated in Louisville, loser-pays, with the arbitrator told to weigh the college’s own decision
• HCI College — West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale; counsel barred outright, no student filing deadline published, and all appeals declared final
• Arizona College of Nursing — Fort Lauderdale and Tampa; counsel barred except in Title IX and disability matters
• Southeastern College — AAA Commercial arbitration with fee-shifting running only to the school
• Fortis College and Fortis Institute — four campuses across all three federal districts; Cutler Bay passed 52.94%
• FVI School of Nursing and Technology — Miami and Miramar, both above benchmark in 2025
• University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences — OT, PT and speech-language pathology; post-licensure nursing only, no prelicensure program

Nursing programs inside the public colleges and universities are covered on those institutions’ own pages in the Florida schools index, and each of the 28 Florida College System pages now lists every campus with the selective programs sited there. Students at those public institutions have the Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) rights that private-school students do not — including a legal representative who may question witnesses.

Common questions

My nursing program is on probation. Does that help my case?

Not automatically, and it is not a defense to a dismissal. What it does is make certain questions worth asking — whether progression standards changed after you enrolled, when you were told, and whether the standard applied to you matched the one applied to earlier cohorts.

Does probation mean my degree or my NCLEX eligibility is at risk?

A program on probation remains an approved program, and its students remain eligible to sit the NCLEX. The risk is practical rather than formal: probation is a step on a path that can end in termination of approval, so a student in a program on probation should keep their own records of enrollment, transcripts and clinical hours.

Can I find out why my program is on probation?

Yes, but not from the license record, which shows status only. The Board of Nursing’s order or meeting minutes for that program will state the ground. Those are public records and can be requested.

Can a school raise the exit-exam score required to graduate after I have enrolled?

That depends on what the catalog and handbook in force when you enrolled actually said, and on what the school reserved the right to change. It is one of the most commonly contested points in Florida nursing dismissals and it turns on documents, so keep the version you were given at orientation.