{"id":332617,"date":"2026-07-08T02:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T02:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332617\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T02:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T02:25:19","slug":"florida-loses-appeal-over-college-accreditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332617\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida loses appeal over college accreditation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"text-to-speech__button__icon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.highereddive.com\/static\/img\/play.svg?313321260226\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/>\n        Listen to the article<\/p>\n<p>            2 min<\/p>\n<p>            This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.highereddive.com\/contact\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Dive Brief:<\/p>\n<p>Dive Insight:<\/p>\n<p>A college must be accredited by a federally recognized agency to access federal financial aid, something few institutions can survive without.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, Florida asked a judge to block the Education Department from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.highereddive.com\/news\/florida-sues-ed-department-over-accreditation\/653829\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">enforcing federal accreditation requirements<\/a> against the state\u2019s higher education institutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Elected state representatives \u201chave exhibited a desire for greater involvement in the governance of state institutions,&#8221; the lawsuit said, listing the development of new programs as one example. But the primary accreditor for Florida colleges, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, had policies that opposed state lawmakers\u2019 goals, the lawsuit argued.<\/p>\n<p>Under these policies, officials alleged, Florida was effectively unable to govern its colleges and universities without risking their viability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe reject the idea that a totally unaccountable, unappointed, unelected accrediting agency can trump what the state of Florida is doing,\u201d Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time.<\/p>\n<p>But U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, writing on behalf of a panel of three judges, on Monday ruled that \u201cthere is really no debate that the accreditation requirement is reasonable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is obviously connected to Congress\u2019s goal that federal student aid flow to high quality institutions,&#8221; Brasher said. &#8220;The history of private accreditation underscores the reasonableness of relying on that kind of preexisting practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also dismissed Florida&#8217;s argument that accreditation agencies are effectively exercising legislative or executive power.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Congress\u2019s decision to use private accreditation as a signal of institutional quality does not delegate legislative or executive power or require accreditors\u2019 appointment as executive branch officers,&#8221; Brasher said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to the article 2 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-332617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}