{"id":389603,"date":"2026-09-03T20:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/389603\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T20:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:44:08","slug":"florida-votes-to-ban-undocumented-students-from-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/389603\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida votes to ban undocumented students from universities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida\u2019s Board of Governors voted to ban undocumented students<\/a> from the state\u2019s universities Thursday, making Florida the largest state in the country to keep that group from state-funded higher education.<\/p>\n

The decision, approved unanimously and with no discussion, states that \u201ca person who is present in the United States unlawfully shall not be eligible for initial enrollment in any state university\u201d starting in the 2027-28 academic year.<\/p>\n

Florida now joins Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in adopting \u201cprohibitive enrollment\u201d policies that bar students without legal status from enrolling in some or all public institutions.<\/p>\n

The decision followed a similar June vote by the State Board of Education, which oversees Florida\u2019s 28 state colleges, that banned immigrants without legal status from the state colleges and adult education programs.<\/p>\n

There are no exact figures for how many undocumented students attend Florida\u2019s public colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

But in the 2024-25 academic year, there were at least 4,672 undocumented students enrolled in Florida\u2019s state colleges and likely about 2,000 more at state universities, based on a count of who was using out-of-state tuition waivers. Those waivers allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, though they were not citizens.<\/p>\n

As the Trump administration cracked down on immigration, and Florida followed in that path, the state ended in-state tuition for those students, and Thursday\u2019s vote has now closed off their path to enrollment.<\/p>\n

National organizations have estimated that thousands of undocumented students have attended Florida colleges and universities in the past.<\/p>\n

Eight people spoke during the meeting\u2019s public comment time, all asking the board to vote down the ban on undocumented students.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic colleges should be about expanding opportunity, not restricting who gets a chance to learn, grow, and contribute to their communities,\u201d said Kaili Taylor, a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University, where the meeting was held.<\/p>\n

Gustavo Rivera, state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, a civil rights organization, condemned the decision in a statement, saying the group \u201cstands with the thousands of students, families, and educators across our state who will bear the cost of this policy, a cost measured not only in lost tuition dollars, but in lost potential for Florida\u2019s workforce and economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Cassanello, the president of the United Faculty of Florida and a professor at the University of Central Florida, called the decision \u201canother example of overreach\u201d by Gov. Ron DeSantis because the Florida Legislature considered but then rejected bills banning undocumented students this spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have appointed state officials who are taking it upon themselves to do what the Legislature passed on. And I think that\u2019s really troubling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nothing bars a student without legal status from attending Florida\u2019s K-12 schools, Cassanello said, so banning them from the state\u2019s colleges and universities makes no sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could be productive residents of Florida, getting advanced degrees or more education certificates and really contribute to the economy of Florida,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cassanello also questioned the financial cost to universities. State colleges have already been tasked with building systems to identify undocumented applicants, Cassanello said, and so state universities will likely have to do the same.<\/p>\n

Maria Barbero, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast, told the board\u00a0 immigrant students earn their admission to Florida\u2019s universities like any other student.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to reconcile how barring a whole group of students from public universities meets our mission and values as a state university system,\u201d Barbero said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s Board of Governors voted to ban undocumented students from the state\u2019s universities Thursday, making Florida the largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[113,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-389603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389603","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=389603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}