The State Board of Education voted Tuesday to ban undocumented students from enrolling in state colleges, a move that brings the state one step closer to becoming the largest in the nation to shut these immigrants out of publicly-financed higher education.
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The board, which oversees the state’s 28 state colleges, voted in a 6-1 decision without discussion in favor of a proposal to make those colleges, as well as Florida’s adult education programs, off-limits to immigrants without proof of legal status.
The sole dissenting vote on the board came from member Daniel Foganholi, a first-generation American born to Brazilian immigrant parents.
Tuesday’s decision follows a similar proposal by the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s 12 universities, to bar undocumented students from enrolling at Florida State University, the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida and other state universities.
If approved at that board’s next board meeting in September, Florida would then join Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in adopting “prohibitive enrollment” policies, in which students without legal status are barred from enrolling in some or all public higher education institutions.
“Education is not meant to be a policing system for immigrants,” said Alex Liberman, one of more than 50 people who spoke out during public comment, including students, parents, teachers, local politicians and immigrant rights groups.
The vast majority of speakers argued the rule would create bureaucratic barriers and discourage not only undocumented students from higher education, but fearful legal immigrants as well.
“I’m calling to express my utmost disgust and concern,” said Virginia Bolton, a student at Florida International University, who spoke via phone. “These items are not only cruel, vague and hypocritical of what the Department of Education stands for, for but what the United States Constitution does as well.”
“I came from Colombia when I was 8 years old and our public education system turned me from an undocumented student to a proud job-creating entrepreneur,” said Luisa Santos, a school board member in Miami-Dade County. “None of that would have been possible if today’s rules… existed.”
State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, said the board lacks the authority to implement this rule and doing so would violate the Florida Education Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on national origin, among other regulations.
“Florida law requires you to maintain an open-door admission policy in our state college system which these rules violate,” Smith said. “Our constitution also requires you to provide for the education of all children within our borders, which makes what you are doing unconstitutional.”
Angela Mann, a professor in Florida’s state university system, said her “Dreamer’ students, those brought into the country illegally as children, are “some of the hardest-working students in my classroom.”
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“My husband was a Dreamer who attended college using the GI bill after serving his country,” Mann said. “They contribute to our society, and limiting them from accessing this education is not only going to limit their own futures but its also going to limit the future of Florida.”
But the state board said they did have the authority to implement the rule, citing Florida statutes that pave the way to allow it to create admission criteria.
“Specifically, the rule is organized to introduce admission criteria in the context of admissions and responsibilities of the Florida College system expressed in section 1004.65, Florida statutes,” said Kathy Hebda, Chancellor of the Division of Florida Colleges.
There is no exact data on how many students in the state colleges and universities lack legal status.
But in the 2024-25 academic year, there were at least 4,672 undocumented students enrolled in Florida’s 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.
National organizations, however, have estimated that thousands more undocumented students attend Florida colleges and universities.
“Banning Dreamers from Florida colleges is both cruel and counterproductive to our state,” said Gaby Pacheco, president of Dream.US, a group that supplies undocumented college students with scholarships, in a statement.
The proposed rule changes come as the Republican administrations of both Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump crack down on immigration. Last year the state repealed a law that allowed Dreamers to pay in-state tuition, making it far more expensive for them to take classes at public colleges and universities.
That law was once championed by Florida Republicans, including former Lt. Gov. Jeannette Nuñez, now president of FIU. “Let’s not hold these children responsible for actions that their parents took. Something they had no control over. Let’s allow for opportunities for all of Florida’s children,” Nuñez said in 2014, according to Scripps News.
In 2025, Nuñez had flipped and backed its repeal. “Our country looks very different today than it did then,” she said, according to Florida Politics. “It’s time to repeal this law. It has served its purpose and run its course.”
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