Fortis College and Fortis Institute Florida Student Defense Lawyer

Four Florida campuses, three federal districts, two different names

Fortis operates four Florida campuses under two names, which is the first thing to sort out because it affects which document governs you.

Fortis College — Cutler Bay, in Miami-Dade County, offering practical nursing and an associate degree in nursing; and Orange Park, in Clay County near Jacksonville, offering practical nursing.

Fortis Institute — Pensacola, in Escambia County, offering practical nursing and an associate degree; and Port St. Lucie, in St. Lucie County, offering practical nursing and an associate degree.

Between them those four sit in all three Florida federal districts, which is unusual for a four-campus operation and means venue is decided entirely by which campus you attended. It is a private for-profit institution.

This is a private institution, so it is not a state actor: the Fourteenth Amendment does not reach it, and Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) — which gives students at Florida’s public colleges and state universities a legal representative who may question witnesses — does not apply. What governs is the school’s own published policy, enforced as a contract, and in Florida Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences makes that contract carry real damages where an institution departs from its own procedures.

The pass-rate picture is uneven, and that is the useful part

The four campuses did not perform alike in 2025, and the spread is wide enough to matter.

Cutler Bay’s associate-degree programme passed 52.94% of 68 first-time candidates — more than twenty points below the 76.05% statutory benchmark, on a substantial cohort. Pensacola’s associate programme passed 83.1% and Port St. Lucie’s 81.2%, both above benchmark. Orange Park’s practical nursing programme passed 93.33%.

So this is not an institution-wide problem; it is concentrated. For a student dismissed from Cutler Bay specifically, that concentration is context worth having, because a programme more than twenty points below a statutory floor is under real pressure, and a programme under pressure has an institutional interest in who sits the exam. That does not explain any individual dismissal, and it would be wrong to suggest otherwise. What it does is justify examining the progression documents closely rather than accepting a decision at face value.

Under Fla. Stat. section 464.019(5)(a)1 a Florida nursing programme’s first-time NCLEX passage rate must stay within 10 percentage points of the national average for comparable programmes, and two consecutive years below that floor puts approval at risk. The full picture is in the 2025 pass rates for every Florida programme below the benchmark.

Practical nursing dismissals run differently from ADN dismissals

Worth separating, because three of the four campuses run practical nursing and the stakes are structured differently.

A practical nursing programme is short, often under a year, and heavily sequenced. There is very little room to absorb a failure, remediation windows are compressed, and a student dismissed late in a short programme has invested nearly the full cost with nothing transferable to show. The Sharick damages measure — the lost value of the credential — is proportionately just as real for a PN student as for a doctoral one, even though the absolute figure is smaller.

Associate-degree programmes at these campuses add standardised progression testing and a longer clinical sequence, which introduces the two failure modes that dominate ADN dismissals: a benchmark examination treated as dispositive, and a clinical site’s judgement converting into a course failure and then a progression bar.

The first written request

Ask, in writing, for four things before you respond substantively: the specific provision alleged; a complete copy of the catalog or handbook containing it, in the edition applicable to your cohort; the material the school is relying on; and the deadline by which you must respond. Catalogs are cohort-specific, and a school applying a later edition to an earlier cohort has departed from its own contract. Keep the request and the reply.

Because Fortis operates campuses under two names in four locations, add a fifth question to that request: which entity and which campus administration is deciding your matter. With a multi-campus for-profit operation the answer is not always the campus you attended, and it determines who you are actually dealing with.

Three routes stay open whatever a catalog or enrolment agreement says: a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Section 504, ADA, Title IX, Title VI or retaliation; a complaint to the institution’s accreditor, which cares whether a school follows its own published policy; and a complaint to the Florida Commission for Independent Education, which licenses independent postsecondary institutions in this state. For an approved nursing programme the Board of Nursing is a fourth.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

  • Establishing which entity, campus and catalog edition governs, given the two-name four-campus structure
  • Examining progression decisions at Cutler Bay against a programme more than twenty points below the statutory benchmark
  • Testing whether a standardised examination score is dispositive under the published policy
  • Challenging a withdrawal recharacterised as a failure to trigger a progression bar
  • Enforcing remediation the catalog offered but the programme did not deliver
  • Building Section 504 and ADA claims where accommodations were delayed, diluted or refused
  • Assessing Sharick damages, which matter proportionately as much in a short practical nursing programme as in a degree programme
  • Handling nursing school dismissal and clinical removal

Which court covers which campus

  • Fortis College, Cutler Bay — Miami-Dade County, Southern District of Florida, Miami Division
  • Fortis Institute, Port St. Lucie — St. Lucie County, Southern District of Florida, Fort Pierce Division
  • Fortis College, Orange Park — Clay County, Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division
  • Fortis Institute, Pensacola — Escambia County, Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division

County assignments are under 28 U.S.C. section 89, and I am admitted to the bar of all three Florida districts. See the guide to federal districts by campus and the Florida nursing programs page.

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 Fortis College and Fortis Institute Florida cases

What is the difference between Fortis College and Fortis Institute in Florida?

They are the two names the same operation uses. Fortis College runs Cutler Bay and Orange Park; Fortis Institute runs Pensacola and Port St. Lucie. Which name applies affects which catalog governs you, so establish it in writing.

How did the Florida campuses perform on the NCLEX in 2025?

Unevenly. Cutler Bay’s associate programme passed 52.94% of 68 first-time candidates, more than twenty points below the 76.05% benchmark. Pensacola passed 83.1% and Port St. Lucie 81.2%, both above benchmark, and Orange Park’s practical nursing programme passed 93.33%.

Does a low pass rate mean my dismissal was wrong?

No, and no page can tell you that. What a programme more than twenty points below a statutory floor gives you is a reason to examine the progression documents closely, because a programme under that pressure has an interest in who sits the exam.

Which federal court covers my campus?

All three Florida districts are represented. Cutler Bay is the Southern District at Miami, Port St. Lucie the Southern District at Fort Pierce, Orange Park the Middle District at Jacksonville, and Pensacola the Northern District at Pensacola.

I was dismissed near the end of a practical nursing programme. Is it worth pursuing?

Often yes. A short programme means you have invested nearly the full cost with nothing transferable, and Florida’s Sharick measure of damages — the lost value of the credential — applies proportionately just as it would to a longer degree.

Who actually decides my appeal?

Ask in writing. With a multi-campus for-profit operation the deciding administration is not always the campus you attended, and knowing which entity and which campus is handling the matter changes who you are dealing with.