Concorde Career Institute Miramar Student Defense

Concorde Career Institute’s Miramar campus is a for-profit institution in Broward County, licensed by Florida’s Commission for Independent Education and participating in federal student aid. Federal disputes go to the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division. Concorde also operates campuses in Tampa and Orlando; each is a separate campus with its own records, and this page is about Miramar.

The campus you attended is the campus that matters

Concorde is a chain, and students routinely assume that means a single institutional record. It does not. Each campus holds its own programme approvals, its own faculty, its own catalogue supplements and its own Board records, and each sits in a different court division — Miramar in the Southern District at Fort Lauderdale, Tampa in the Middle District at Tampa, and Orlando in the Middle District at Orlando. A grievance that cites the chain rather than the campus, or cites the wrong campus’s policy, gets a response that corrects you rather than answers you.

In the Board of Nursing’s 2025 reporting year, the Board lists a practical nursing entry for Concorde Career Institute with fifty-six first-time candidates of whom forty-four passed — 78.57% against the 77.17% practical nursing benchmark, so above the line but not by much. That entry is not designated by campus in the report, so I am not going to attribute it to Miramar specifically. If a pass rate matters to your case, ask the campus in writing which Board programme code its practical nursing programme is reported under, and take the figure from that code.

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.

Allied-health certification: the disqualification is structural, not disciplinary

Radiography, respiratory care and the other allied-health credentials work the same way as nursing in one respect and differently in another. The same part is that completion of an approved programme is a statutory precondition, so a dismissal blocks the credential. The different part is that no one treats the dismissal as misconduct.

For radiologic technology, section 468.301(8), Florida Statutes, defines an “educational program” as didactic or clinical training with specified objectives that is subject to departmental approval; section 468.305 puts approval of those programmes with the Department of Health rather than a separate board; and section 468.304 requires each applicant to submit sworn evidence of having completed one. Section 468.3101 lists the disciplinary grounds — criminal convictions related to practice, adverse action by another state or a national certifying organisation — and academic dismissal is not among them. Respiratory care under part V of chapter 468 is built the same way: section 468.351 states the licensing purpose, licensure requires completion of an approved programme plus a recognised national examination, and nothing in the part makes a dismissal an independent disqualifier.

Why that distinction is worth money to you: it means the thing standing between you and the examination is a completion record, and completion records are negotiable in a way that findings of misconduct are not. A withdrawal recoded in place of a dismissal, a readmission with advanced standing, a documented clinical make-up, a transcript that shows the hours you actually did — each of those restores eligibility without anyone having to concede fault. Conversely, if the school reports the exit to a national certifying organisation as a conduct matter, the calculus changes completely, because section 468.3101 does reach adverse action by a national organisation. Establishing early which of the two is happening is the first thing to pin down in writing.

Allied-health programmes carry a clinical-site problem that classroom programmes do not

Dental hygiene, radiography, respiratory care, surgical technology and the rest all depend on placements the school arranges at facilities the school does not control. That produces a distinct category of dismissal: the site raises a concern, or asks that you not return, and the school treats losing the placement as a programme failure. The questions worth asking are whether the school was contractually obliged to provide a placement, whether the catalogue promised an alternative if one fell through, whether the site’s account was independently examined or simply adopted, and whether the conduct alleged was actually assessed against a written clinical standard. A student removed from a site for something a supervisor said, with no written evaluation and no independent look, is in a much stronger position than they usually realise.

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.

Concorde Tampa · Concorde Orlando · Florida NCLEX pass rates by school · Florida student defence

Other Florida technical and career institutions

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 technical and career institutions:

Common questions about Concorde Career Institute Miramar cases

Does it matter which Concorde campus I attended?

Yes, considerably. Each campus holds its own programme approvals, catalogue supplements, faculty and records, and each sits in a different federal court division. Miramar is in the Southern District of Florida at Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando in the Middle District. A grievance citing the wrong campus’s policy gets corrected rather than answered.

What was Concorde’s NCLEX pass rate in 2025?

The Board lists a practical nursing entry for Concorde Career Institute with fifty-six first-time candidates and forty-four passing, 78.57%, against a 77.17% benchmark. That entry is not broken out by campus in the report, so it should not be attributed to Miramar specifically. Ask the campus which Board programme code it reports under.

I was removed from a clinical site. Is that the same as being dismissed?

Not automatically, and the distinction is worth pressing. Ask whether the school was obliged to provide a placement, whether the catalogue promised an alternative if one fell through, whether the site’s account was independently examined, and whether the conduct was assessed against a written clinical standard. A removal based on an unwritten complaint that nobody investigated is a weak basis for a dismissal.

Can I still get certified in radiography or respiratory care after a dismissal?

Not without completing an approved programme. Section 468.304 requires sworn evidence of completing a department-approved educational programme for radiologic technology certification, and respiratory care works the same way. The good news is that neither statute treats dismissal itself as misconduct, so the obstacle is a completion record — and completion records can be negotiated.

Does a dismissal get reported anywhere that follows me?

It depends on how the school characterises it. Academic dismissal is not a disciplinary ground under section 468.3101. But that section does reach adverse action by a national certifying organisation, so if the school reports the matter to one as a conduct issue the consequences are materially worse. Establish in writing which of the two is happening, early.

What should I do in the first week?

Find the appeal deadline in the campus catalogue — the campus one, not the chain website — and file inside it. Ask in writing for the complete record relied on and the specific policy provision applied. Keep the request. Then get the catalogue edition in force when you enrolled, because that is your contract.