Florida sues federal government over school accreditation collaboration

(The Center Square) — The state of Florida filed a lawsuit this week to challenge federal collaboration with accreditation organizations to usurp recent reforms to the Sunshine State’s higher education system.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida on Thursday with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.

In 2022 DeSantis signed Senate Bill 7044 to end the monopoly of federally-approved private accrediting agencies in Florida universities and community colleges. For a college or university to have access to the federal student loan program, it must be first accredited by these accreditors. The law requires more than half of Florida’s institutions of higher education to change accreditation organizations in the next two years.

DeSantis noted that before he signed the legislation, accrediting agencies were able to control their operations of public higher education institutions by threatening to withhold accreditation that did not push the agenda promoted by the accreditor.

DeSantis said the lawsuit seeks to strip these accreditors of their authority.

“We don’t think that the purpose of universities is to impose an ideological agenda, there should be freedom of discussion, freedom of speech, and there shouldn’t be an imposition of an orthodoxy,” DeSantis said.

During his news conference, DeSantis stated that during his time as governor, Florida’s state universities and colleges have been ranked number one for public higher education in the U.S. and that the U.S. Department of Education was unconstitutionally attempting to block efforts by his office to bring more transparency and accountability into Florida’s state higher education institutions, and was collaborating with accreditation bodies to do it.

“We are going to be taking action to protect Florida’s higher education system,” DeSantis said, adding college tuition in Florida has not increased in a decade.

DeSantis stated that it has been a priority to reform higher education to bring more accountability and transparency to higher education and to move away from what he terms destructive ideologies while preparing students for success when they reach the workforce.

“We recognize in Florida that these institutions are not existing in a vacuum, these are not institutions that could exist without the support of the taxpayers of the state of Florida, they are funding billions and billions of dollars into these systems,” DeSantis said, adding that this is why more accountability is needed for higher education institutions.