Florida’s Board of Governors voted to ban undocumented students from the state’s universities Thursday, making Florida the largest state in the country to keep that group from state-funded higher education.
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The decision, approved unanimously and with no discussion, states that “a person who is present in the United States unlawfully shall not be eligible for initial enrollment in any state university” starting in the 2027-28 academic year.
Florida now joins Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in adopting “prohibitive enrollment” policies that bar students without legal status from enrolling in some or all public institutions.
The decision followed a similar June vote by the State Board of Education, which oversees Florida’s 28 state colleges, that banned immigrants without legal status from the state colleges and adult education programs.
There are no exact figures for how many undocumented students attend Florida’s public colleges and universities.
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.
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’s vote has now closed off their path to enrollment.
National organizations have estimated that thousands of undocumented students have attended Florida colleges and universities in the past.
Eight people spoke during the meeting’s public comment time, all asking the board to vote down the ban on undocumented students.
“Public colleges should be about expanding opportunity, not restricting who gets a chance to learn, grow, and contribute to their communities,” said Kaili Taylor, a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University, where the meeting was held.
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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 “stands 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’s workforce and economy.”
Robert Cassanello, the president of the United Faculty of Florida and a professor at the University of Central Florida, called the decision “another example of overreach” by Gov. Ron DeSantis because the Florida Legislature considered but then rejected bills banning undocumented students this spring.
“Now we have appointed state officials who are taking it upon themselves to do what the Legislature passed on. And I think that’s really troubling,” he said.
Nothing bars a student without legal status from attending Florida’s K-12 schools, Cassanello said, so banning them from the state’s colleges and universities makes no sense.
“They could be productive residents of Florida, getting advanced degrees or more education certificates and really contribute to the economy of Florida,” he said.
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.
Maria Barbero, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast, told the board immigrant students earn their admission to Florida’s universities like any other student.
“It’s hard to reconcile how barring a whole group of students from public universities meets our mission and values as a state university system,” Barbero said.
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