Advance Science International College Defense

Advance Science International College is a for-profit institution in Miami Lakes, in Miami-Dade County, licensed by Florida’s Commission for Independent Education and participating in federal student aid. Federal disputes go to the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.

Two candidates sat in 2025, and neither passed

The Board of Nursing’s 2025 report lists the associate degree programme here with two first-time candidates, neither of whom passed. Arithmetically that is nought per cent against a 76.05% benchmark. I am going to be direct about what that figure is and is not, because it would be easy to present it as damning and it would be misleading to do so.

Two candidates cannot establish anything about a programme. A rate calculated on two people is not a rate. What the entry does indicate is that this is a very new or very small nursing programme — a mature programme graduating a normal cohort does not send two candidates to the examination. That matters to you for a reason that has nothing to do with statistics: new programmes are where procedural problems concentrate. Policies are still being drafted. Faculty turn over. The catalogue is revised between cohorts, sometimes mid-cohort. Progression rules get applied for the first time to real students, and the first application is where inconsistency shows up. If you were dismissed from a programme in its first years, the odds that the school departed from its own written procedure are meaningfully higher than at an established programme, and that is the claim Florida law recognises.

The questions to ask a new programme

Four are worth putting in writing. Which catalogue edition governs your enrolment, and can the school produce it? Has the progression policy been revised since you enrolled, and if so, which version was applied to you? Who, by role, was required to make and to review this decision under that policy, and were those the people who did? And has the programme’s Board approval status changed during your enrolment? The last one matters because a change in the programme’s standing while you were enrolled can affect the value of what you completed, and that is a chapter 1005 issue for the Commission for Independent Education as much as a Board issue.

How Florida measures a nursing programme, and why the number matters to your case

Section 464.019(5), Florida Statutes, ties a nursing programme’s standing to the passing rate of its first-time NCLEX candidates. When a programme’s annual rate falls below the national average passing rate for that credential, the Board of Nursing places it on probationary status, and the programme has to submit a remediation plan and hold that plan open until its rate recovers. For the 2025 reporting year the national benchmarks were 76.05% for associate-degree registered nursing, 77.59% for baccalaureate registered nursing, 77.17% for practical nursing, and 73.37% for diploma registered nursing programmes.

Be clear about what that figure does and does not do for a dismissed student. A low pass rate is not a defence. It does not make your dismissal unlawful and no hearing panel will treat it that way. What it does is three narrower things, and each of them is worth something. First, a programme carrying a remediation plan has documented obligations to its students — tutoring, repeat testing, faculty ratios, progression review — and if the programme dismissed you for a benchmark it was itself failing to support, that gap is discoverable and it is the kind of fact that changes how a complaint reads. Second, it makes consistency testable: if a cohort saw thirty per cent of its members fail the same exit exam, a dismissal justified as an individual academic failure invites the question of who else failed it and what happened to them. Third, it is leverage. A programme already under Board attention has a real institutional reason to resolve a student’s complaint quietly rather than let it become another entry in a file the Board is reading.

What a Florida court will and will not review

Your relationship with a private licensed school is contractual, not constitutional. Fourteenth Amendment due process constrains state actors, and a private institution is not one, so the argument is built on the enrolment agreement, the catalogue and the handbook rather than on due process. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, 780 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), established both that the relationship is contractual and that damages can reach the lost value of the credential itself, not just tuition paid.

The limit on that is the part students are rarely told. In Tercier v. University of Miami, 383 So. 3d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023) — a nursing dismissal — the Third District confirmed that judicial review of a private institution’s academic determination is confined to whether it was arbitrary and capricious, irrational, made in bad faith, or in violation of the constitution or a statute. Jallali v. Nova Southeastern University, 992 So. 2d 338 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) says the same thing from the other direction: schools get wide latitude to set and apply academic requirements, and the student’s implied duty is to comply with rules the school may lawfully change.

The practical translation is short. “The faculty graded me unfairly” loses. “The school did not do what its own published policy said it would do” is the claim that survives, and it is why the first thing worth doing is reading the catalogue edition that was in force when you enrolled against what actually happened to you. Tercier carries a second lesson too: the court noted that claims not briefed on appeal were treated as abandoned. Arguments have to be raised, and preserved, at each level — including inside the school’s own process.

Which regulator actually holds the leverage here

Two different agencies matter, and students routinely write to the wrong one. Florida’s Commission for Independent Education licenses the institution under chapter 1005, Florida Statutes, and the Commission is where you complain about the school — misrepresentation in recruiting, refusal to release a transcript, a refund the school will not pay, a programme that stopped being delivered as advertised. Rule 6E-1.0032, Florida Administrative Code, requires a licensed institution to maintain and follow a published grievance procedure, and the Commission expects to see that you used it before it will act, so the internal appeal is not a formality you can skip on your way to the regulator.

A professional licensing board — Nursing, Massage Therapy, Psychology, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Care, whichever governs the credential — is a different body with different powers. It regulates the programme and the licence, not the school’s business conduct, and it will not order a school to readmit you. Sorting out which of the two can give you the thing you actually want is the first useful hour of work in most of these cases, because the wrong filing costs weeks and tells the school you are not being advised.

If the school closes while you are enrolled, section 1005.36 governs the notice it owes and the custody of student records, and section 1005.37 establishes the Student Protection Fund that can reimburse unearned tuition. Those are separate remedies from anything in your student contract and they run on their own deadlines.

A private school, so the statute students rely on does not apply

Most writing about Florida student dismissal assumes a public college, where Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) supplies notice, a hearing, the right to be accompanied by counsel and a burden that rests on the institution. This is a private institution. None of that section reaches it.

What governs instead is the enrolment agreement, the catalogue and the student and programme handbooks, read as a contract. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences establishes that a Florida student dismissed in breach of the school’s own contractual undertakings has a claim, and that damages can extend to lost future earning capacity rather than a refund of tuition.

Two further things matter at schools of this kind. Many enrolment agreements contain an arbitration clause, and whether it binds a student depends on the version signed, how broadly it is drafted, whether its cost terms are unconscionable and whether the school has waived it — that comes first, because it decides whether there is a courtroom at all. And where a school is licensed by the Florida Commission for Independent Education, the CIE complaint route exists alongside any civil claim and is often the faster pressure point.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

Resolve the arbitration question first, from the agreement the student actually signed.
Assemble the enrolment agreement, catalogue and programme handbook for the correct edition, and pin down the promises about process.
Test the progression arithmetic — withdrawals, repeats and clinical failures are often counted in ways the handbook does not authorise.
Use the Commission for Independent Education complaint route where the school is CIE-licensed, in parallel with the civil claim.
Press on the wording of the decision letter, which follows the student into every future licensure and transfer application.

Florida nursing programme NCLEX pass rates, school by school · Florida student defence

Other Florida colleges

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Florida colleges:

Common questions about Advance Science International College cases

What was the 2025 NCLEX result at Advance Science International College?

The Board lists two first-time candidates for the associate degree programme, neither of whom passed. Arithmetically that is nought per cent against a 76.05% benchmark, but two candidates cannot measure a programme and it would be wrong to present the figure as if it could.

If the pass rate is nought per cent, does that prove the programme failed me?

No, and pressing that argument would damage your credibility. Two candidates is not a sample. The useful inference from the entry is different: the programme is very new or very small, and new programmes are where procedural irregularities concentrate. That is the line worth pursuing.

Why does a new programme help my case?

Because the claim Florida recognises is that the school did not follow its own published procedure, and new programmes are still writing those procedures. Catalogues get revised between and sometimes during cohorts, faculty turn over, and progression rules are applied to real students for the first time. Inconsistency is more likely, and more provable.

What should I ask the school in writing?

Which catalogue edition governs your enrolment and whether they can produce it; whether the progression policy has been revised since you enrolled and which version was applied to you; who by role was required to make and review the decision and whether those were the people who did; and whether the programme’s Board approval status changed while you were enrolled.

Why does the programme’s approval status matter?

Because it can affect the value of the credits you completed. If a programme’s standing changed during your enrolment, that is a matter for the Commission for Independent Education under chapter 1005 as well as for the Board of Nursing, and the Student Protection Fund under section 1005.37 exists for exactly that kind of situation.

Which federal court covers this school?

Miami-Dade County is in the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. Check your enrolment agreement for an arbitration clause before assuming court is available.