University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences Student Defense Lawyer

How do dismissal and professionalism cases work at USAHS?

The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences has two Florida campuses: St. Augustine, in St. Johns County, and Miami, in Miami-Dade County, which opened in 2015. It is a graduate health-sciences institution, and the programmes that matter here are the ones it actually runs.

One point of clarification first, because it sends people to the wrong page. USAHS is not a prelicensure nursing school. Its Florida degree programmes are occupational therapy (MOT and OTD), physical therapy (DPT), and speech-language pathology (MS-SLP). Its School of Nursing offers post-licensure graduate work — MSN and DNP — to people who are already licensed nurses. It has no Florida Board of Nursing approved prelicensure programme, and it does not appear in the Board’s NCLEX reporting for that reason. So if you are a nursing student looking for an NCLEX pass rate or a BON approval status here, there is not one to find. If you are a DPT, OT, or SLP student facing dismissal, you are in the right place.

USAHS is a private for-profit institution. It was acquired by Perdoceo Education Corporation on 2 December 2024, which is recent enough that policy documents and administrative contacts may be in transition — worth confirming which version of the catalog governs your cohort rather than assuming the one currently posted does.

What law applies, and what does not

Being private, USAHS is not a state actor. The Fourteenth Amendment does not reach it, and Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) — the statute giving students at Florida’s public colleges and state universities a legal representative who may question witnesses — does not apply. The governing law is the university’s own published policy, enforced as a contract.

In Florida that is a genuinely useful position rather than a weak one. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences — a Florida case about a health-sciences student dismissed near the end of his programme — establishes that an institution which departs from its own procedures can face real damages, including for the lost value of the degree. For a doctoral health-sciences student two years and six figures into a DPT or OTD, that measure of damages is not theoretical.

Federal claims survive the school being private. Section 504 and the ADA apply because USAHS takes federal funds; Title IX applies; Title VI applies. Accommodation and disability-discrimination claims are frequently the strongest route in clinical-failure cases, and they do not depend on the school being public.

The catalog is not publicly readable, and that matters

A candid note on sourcing. USAHS’s catalog site returns an automated challenge rather than its content, so its conduct code, academic-standing rules, day counts, and advisor provisions could not be verified from the public record in preparing this page. I will not state a deadline or a standard of proof that I have not read.

Practically, that makes the first written request in any USAHS matter the same: ask for the catalog and student handbook edition that governs your cohort, in writing, along with the specific policy provision being applied. Catalogs are usually cohort-specific, and a school that applies a later edition to an earlier cohort has departed from its own contract — which is precisely the Sharick question. Getting the governing document in writing early both arms the defence and creates the record.

Where these cases actually come from

In DPT, OT, and SLP programmes the dismissal rarely arrives as a conduct charge. It arrives through one of four routes, and they are governed by different rules that are often conflated.

Clinical education failure. A clinical instructor or site coordinator reports unsatisfactory performance, or a site asks for a student’s removal. In most health-sciences programmes a clinical failure converts to a course failure and a course failure triggers academic standing review, so a single site’s judgement cascades. The leverage is usually in whether the programme followed its own remediation and notice provisions before the cascade, and in whether the site’s concerns were documented contemporaneously or reconstructed afterwards.

Professionalism and technical standards. Health-sciences programmes hold students to professional-behaviour and technical-standards provisions that are far more open-textured than an academic-integrity rule. That breadth is a defect as much as a weapon: a vague standard applied inconsistently is the classic arbitrary-and-capricious case, and the comparison to how other students were treated is the argument.

Remediation and progression. Where a programme offers remediation, the terms of the offer are contractual. A student who completed what was asked and was dismissed anyway has a straightforward breach argument.

Accommodation failure. Where a student requested an accommodation and the programme delayed, diluted, or refused it, and performance then suffered, that sequence is a Section 504 and ADA claim rather than an academic dispute — and it is the one route unaffected by the school’s private status.

Licensure is the reason to fight early

The dismissal is not the end of the exposure. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology are licensed professions, and their boards ask about dismissals, professionalism findings, and disciplinary history on application. A finding recorded as a professionalism or fitness concern is materially worse on a licensure application than an academic deficiency, even where the practical outcome is the same. That distinction is negotiable while the matter is open and effectively fixed once it is closed, which is the argument for engaging before a decision rather than after.

What should you do first?

Request the governing catalog edition and the specific provision in writing. Gather everything contemporaneous: clinical evaluation forms, site correspondence, emails with the programme director and the clinical education coordinator, any accommodation request and the response to it, and the remediation terms as they were offered. Do not sign an agreement, a remediation contract, or a voluntary withdrawal before you know what it forecloses — a voluntary withdrawal often extinguishes appeal rights that a dismissal would have preserved.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

  • Obtaining the governing catalog edition in writing, and testing whether the version being applied is the one that governs your cohort
  • Establishing whether the programme followed its own remediation and notice provisions before a clinical failure cascaded into dismissal
  • Building the Section 504 and ADA record where an accommodation was delayed, diluted, or refused
  • Challenging clinical rotation removal and clinical failure findings on documentation and consistency
  • Contesting open-textured professionalism and fitness findings as arbitrary and capricious
  • Negotiating the characterisation of an outcome with PT, OT, or SLP licensure applications in view
  • Advising on whether a proposed voluntary withdrawal forfeits appeal rights
  • Assessing breach of contract and Sharick damages where the degree was near completion

Which court hears a USAHS matter depends on the campus

This is the one venue point worth getting right, because the two campuses sit in different federal districts.

The St. Augustine campus is in St. Johns County, which 28 U.S.C. section 89(b) places in the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division. The Miami campus is in Miami-Dade County, which section 89(c) places in the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. I am admitted to the bar of both courts, and of the Northern District as well. Note also that IPEDS reports USAHS at its San Marcos, California parent address, so the Florida campuses are not separately reported in federal data — a reason not to rely on directory listings to establish which campus a programme was delivered from. See the guide to federal districts by campus, the PT and OT dismissal page, and the Florida schools index.

The other Florida nursing and health-sciences schools

Florida’s standalone nursing and health-sciences colleges differ sharply in what their own paperwork permits. Some bar a lawyer from the room entirely, some compel arbitration in another state, and some publish no appeal deadline for the student at all while binding themselves to one. Those provisions, not the school’s reputation, decide how a dismissal case runs.

Before anything else, check where your programme sits against the statutory floor: the 82 Florida nursing programmes below the Fla. Stat. section 464.019 benchmark in 2025, including the written-disclosure duty a programme on probation owes its students. The Florida nursing programs page covers how these cases run, and nursing programmes inside the public colleges and universities are on those institutions’ own pages in the Florida schools index — where students get the Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) rights that private-school students do not.

Common questions about University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences cases

Does USAHS have a nursing programme I can be dismissed from?

Not a prelicensure one. USAHS offers post-licensure MSN and DNP work through its School of Nursing, and its Florida degree programmes are occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech-language pathology. It has no Florida Board of Nursing approved prelicensure programme and does not appear in the Board’s NCLEX reporting.

Do I have due process rights at USAHS?

Not constitutional ones. USAHS is private, so it is not a state actor and Fla. Stat. 1006.60(3) does not apply. Your protections come from the catalog and handbook enforced as a contract, and in Florida Sharick means a departure from those procedures can carry real damages including for the lost value of the degree.

What is the appeal deadline?

I will not state one I have not read. USAHS’s catalog site returns an automated challenge instead of its content, so its day counts and standards could not be verified publicly. Request the catalog edition governing your cohort in writing, and treat the shortest deadline it states as the operative one.

My clinical site asked for my removal. Is that the end of the programme?

Not necessarily, but it moves fast, because in most health-sciences programmes a clinical failure converts to a course failure and then triggers academic standing review. The questions worth pressing are whether the concerns were documented as they happened, and whether the programme followed its own remediation and notice provisions before the cascade.

Which federal court covers USAHS?

It depends on the campus. St. Augustine is in St. Johns County, so the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division. Miami is in Miami-Dade County, so the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.

Will a dismissal affect my PT, OT or SLP licence?

It can. Those boards ask about dismissals and professionalism findings on application, and a finding recorded as a professionalism or fitness concern reads worse than an academic deficiency. How the outcome is worded is negotiable while the matter is open and effectively fixed afterwards.

Should I take the voluntary withdrawal they offered?

Not before you know what it gives up. A voluntary withdrawal frequently extinguishes appeal rights that a dismissal would have preserved, and it can be harder to explain to a licensing board than a decision you contested.