State University Board Bars Undocumented Students, With UF Among the 12 Campuses Affected

What the rule does

Florida’s State University System Board of Governors voted unanimously Thursday to bar undocumented students from enrolling in any of the state’s 12 public universities, according to WUFT News. The approved rule states that anyone “present in the United States unlawfully” will not be eligible for admission, effective with the 2027-2028 academic year. That timeline gives current students and incoming applicants roughly two years before the ban takes effect.

The University of Florida in Gainesville, part of the 12-campus system, is the nearest public university for many Cedar Key and Levy County students and families. The board’s vote applies system-wide, meaning UF’s admissions office will be bound by the same standard as every other state university once the rule takes effect.

Who is behind it, and why now

The move follows public statements from Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, a former state senator appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in August 2025, who called the rule “common sense” in a post on X. “Florida’s public universities are for students who are here legally. Period,” Collins wrote, adding that “Florida taxpayers should not be expected to subsidize opportunities for people who broke our laws to come here.”

The rule is the latest in a string of immigration-related policies from the two boards that set rules for Florida’s public higher-education system, the Board of Governors, which oversees universities, and the Florida Board of Education, which oversees colleges and K-12 education. Republican lawmakers tried and failed to pass similar restrictions through the Legislature. During the 2026 regular session, bills to bar non-citizens without lawful status from all higher-education institutions, and to cap foreign-citizen enrollment more broadly, were filed but died in committee, according to WUFT News. With legislation stalled, the two boards have instead written their own administrative rules to accomplish the same goal.

The broader pattern across Florida education

Thursday’s university vote closely tracks a June decision by the Florida Board of Education barring undocumented students from the state’s 24 public colleges and from GED programs. Levy County’s nearest public college, College of Central Florida, falls under that same board and is covered by the June rule.

Education Commissioner Henry Mack has also approved a rule to block undocumented students from postsecondary career and technical education programs, training pipelines for agriculture, health care, energy, transportation, tourism and construction, fields with direct relevance to Levy County’s economy. That CTE rule is scheduled for discussion at a Board of Education meeting Sept. 16 at Polk State College, a session where the public can weigh in before any final action.

What isn’t yet tracked, and what changed before

The State University System does not currently track how many enrolled students are undocumented, so the practical scale of Thursday’s rule, how many students it will actually turn away starting in 2027-2028, is not yet known from available data.

The policy shift builds on an earlier move: in 2025, DeSantis pushed lawmakers to repeal a 2014 law that had allowed qualified undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Florida universities. That law was originally sponsored by Jeanette Nuñez, DeSantis’s first lieutenant governor, when she served in the state House.

What to watch

For families in Cedar Key and across Levy County with students bound for the University of Florida or College of Central Florida, the near-term deadline to note is the Sept. 16 Board of Education meeting in Polk County, where the CTE rule, covering workforce programs tied to the Nature Coast’s agriculture and tourism sectors, will be up for discussion. No public comment period or further university-system vote has yet been announced beyond the rule approved Thursday.