Hope College of Arts and Sciences Student Defense

Hope College of Arts and Sciences is a for-profit institution in Pompano Beach, in Broward County, licensed by Florida’s Commission for Independent Education and participating in federal student aid. If a dispute here reaches federal court it goes to the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division. It runs both an associate degree in nursing and a practical nursing programme, and if you have been dismissed from either, the 2025 numbers are the first thing you should know about your own case.

Before anything else: this is not Care Hope College

Two Broward-area nursing schools have similar names and separate Board of Nursing records, and students mix them up constantly — including in correspondence, which causes real problems when a letter arrives at the wrong registrar. Hope College of Arts and Sciences is in Pompano Beach. Care Hope College is a different institution with different programmes, different management and a different pass-rate history. If you are not certain which one you attended, check the name on your enrolment agreement rather than the name people use in conversation, because every deadline that matters runs from a document issued by one specific school.

Both 2025 cohorts came in below the benchmark, and the samples were very small

In the Board of Nursing’s 2025 reporting year, Hope College’s associate degree programme had fourteen first-time candidates, of whom seven passed — a 50.00% rate against a 76.05% national benchmark for associate-degree programmes. The practical nursing programme had three first-time candidates, of whom one passed, a 33.33% rate against a 77.17% benchmark.

Say the honest thing about those numbers before using them. Three candidates is not a pass rate; it is three people, and one of them passing rather than two moves the figure by thirty-three points. Fourteen is small too. Statistically neither cohort supports a confident claim about teaching quality. What they do support is a narrower and more useful observation: in a cohort of fourteen, seven students failed, and in a programme that size the faculty knew each of them by name. A dismissal explained as an isolated individual failure is testable against a cohort that small, and the school cannot both treat the outcome as normal for its students and treat your outcome as exceptional.

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 · Care Hope College · 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 Hope College of Arts and Sciences cases

Is Hope College of Arts and Sciences the same as Care Hope College?

No. They are separate institutions with separate Board of Nursing records. Hope College of Arts and Sciences is in Pompano Beach; Care Hope College is a different school with its own programmes and its own pass-rate history. Check the name on your enrolment agreement, not the name in conversation, because your deadlines run from documents issued by one particular school.

Half the associate-degree cohort failed the NCLEX in 2025. Does that help my appeal?

It helps in three specific ways and not in a fourth. It does not make your dismissal unlawful. It does let you test whether the stated reason was applied consistently across a cohort of fourteen, it raises the question of what support the programme owed and delivered, and it gives a school under Board attention a reason to resolve your complaint rather than let it become another record. Used as a standalone argument it will fail.

Fourteen and three candidates seem like tiny numbers. Are they meaningful?

Not as statistics, and you should not let anyone tell you otherwise. Three candidates cannot establish anything about teaching quality. Small cohorts are useful for a different reason: they make individual comparison possible. In a group that size, who else was in your position and what happened to them is a question with a short, checkable answer.

Which court would hear a case against the school?

Broward County sits in the Southern District of Florida, and Local Rule 3.1 assigns Broward matters to the Fort Lauderdale Division. That said, most of these disputes never reach federal court. Your enrolment agreement may contain an arbitration clause, and the internal appeal and the Commission for Independent Education come first in practice.

Can I get my transcript if the school and I are in a dispute?

A licensed institution cannot use your transcript as leverage in a fee or grievance dispute, and refusal to release records is exactly the kind of complaint the Commission for Independent Education acts on. Ask in writing, keep the request, and escalate to the Commission if it is refused rather than arguing about it by telephone.

How quickly do I need to act?

Faster than feels necessary. Internal appeal windows at small institutions are often measured in days from the date on the dismissal letter, not from when you read it, and missing that window is the single most common way a good case becomes unwinnable. Find the deadline in your handbook today, and file something inside it even if it is short.