Some university leaders not happy with Legislature’s enrollment oversight

Some members of the Florida Board of Governors and other university leaders hope the Florida Legislature will backtrack on a last-minute policy that ties their budgets to a limit on out-of-state enrollment. 

Put simply, the BOG, which supervises the State University System, can deny a university’s attempt to increase out-of-state tuition fees if the school enrolls more than the system-wide cap of non-Floridian students — now a max of 10% of the student body systemwide.

That language was in HB 5601E, primarily known for transferring the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida, and won approval during the Legislature’s special session to pass the state budget in May.

Board of Governors members voted without controversy Thursday to go along, following the direction of the Legislature, but held a lengthy conversation following the vote.

Board of Governors Chair Alan Levine said he hopes the panel will reach an official position on the matter during its meeting later this month.

For now, some university leaders made their position clear, citing fear of diluting academic standards of Florida universities.

“I think the question you have to ask yourselves is, how good do you want us to be? And if you don’t want us to be great, yeah, we can start admitting a lot more students that don’t meet the criteria. But I don’t think that that should be the goal,” Florida State University Board of Trustees Chair Peter Collins said.

Instead of admitting students otherwise denied for not meeting academic standards, Collins suggested an alternative.

“The Legislature, or the BOG, instead of doing this, maybe we consider creating a new university. Maybe we just don’t have enough universities,” Collins said. 

University of Florida Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini said, “I believe it is a travesty for legislators to, first of all, do the job of Board of Governors, and, secondly, in the middle of the night, pass something that would really harm the universities.” 

Hosseini said, for his part, that he will talk with legislators about addressing the policy during the next legislative session. 

To achieve higher national rankings, a university may be incentivized to enroll fewer students to avoid disrupting its average academic performance, Hosseini said.

In pursuit of earning a top-five ranking, Hosseini said, “what is going to happen is this: If we can’t get the students out of state that are high GPA and high SAT/ACT, then what we are going to do is bring the number of students down so the percentages don’t affect us.”

Florida Atlantic University President and former Florida House member Adam Hasner concurred, adding that universities cannot control how many students accept or decline admissions offers, making balancing in-state versus out-of-state admissions difficult.

Under the new state law, if a university under-projects its percentage of out-of-state students, it is required to take corrective action such as an enrollment reduction plan.

Collins suggested that if decision-makers want to slow down the number of out-of-state students admitted, it’d be wise to continue to raise tuition for out-of-state students. According to a 2025 Board of Governors report, Florida had the third-lowest out-of-state tuition in the nation, although Florida’s schools have increased out-of-state tuition in the past two years. 

The legislation also deleted language that would have capped a single-year raise in out-of-state tuition fees at 15%. 

According to the state’s 2026 accountability plan, in 2025, a majority of the state universities had greater than 10% of students from out of state, with the systemwide average at 10%.

Inside the Capitol

Early in the legislative session, the House pushed to cap out-of-state enrollment for incoming freshman classes at 5%, cutting the existing regulation of 10% in half. That language did not make it through.

Lawmakers echoed concerns from constituents, claiming valedictorians of some high schools in the state were unable to attain admission to UF. Rep. Jennifer Kincart Jonsson, a Republican from Lakeland, spearheaded the effort, saying, “We need to open up as many seats for our students as possible. Again, Florida students first.”

According to UF data, the university admitted students from 58 of Florida’s 67 counties for the current academic year.

Collins suggested this provision was the next-best-thing in the eyes of lawmakers who initially pushed for that cap.

“This is like a ham-fisted solution to an issue that wasn’t going to pass the Legislature, and they’re fearful that we’re just going to start admitting a ton of out-of-state students,” Collins said. “It’s awkward, it’s ham-fisted, and it’s a solution to a problem that I’m not sure we want to solve.” 

The FSU chair advocated for a student body with zip codes beyond the Sunshine State. “What are we learning if we’re just going to school with our neighbors?” Collins asked.

“Personally, I think that all of us in this room that went to a university benefitted from meeting people outside of the state of Florida,” he observed. “We enrolled people from every state and many different countries in our upcoming fall class. The idea that we should get down to 5% out-of-state students, in my mind, is ridiculous.”

Board of Governors member Doug Broxson, a former legislator, encouraged caution in bucking the Legislature. 

“The people of the state gave $8 billion to higher education last year. With that, comes the responsibility to those citizens who paid that money,” Broxson said. “This is something we need to be extremely careful that we do not offend our provider in saying that we are resisting what they are hearing from their constituents.”

Levine acknowledged the frustration, but added, “If UF is trying to cement its place as a top tier university … well, the reality is that’s not by accident, that was a lot of hard work and by design. … If we don’t have the policy levers to use to make decisions for each of our institutions based on what we’re trying to accomplish for that institution, that’s a disservice.”

“There are times where the Board of Governors needs to assert our policy independence as it comes to our ability to govern these institutions,” Levine said.