The Florida House gave near unanimous approval on Thursday to a proposal that would tighten the state Board of Nursing’s oversight of nursing schools, a change that supporters say is needed because poorly performing programs have left graduates ill-prepared to work in the high-demand field.
The proposal (HB 121) is intended to help weed out programs that don’t prepare their graduates to pass the national Nurse Council Licensure Exam, or NCLEX, a requirement to work in the profession.
“The goal of this legislation is to create accountability for underperforming programs so that they can someday be counted among the highest-performing programs in our state and in our nation,” said bill sponsor Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, just ahead of the vote.
The state’s Board of Nursing once had broad latitude to approve, or deny, new nursing programs and oversee existing ones. But Florida lawmakers in 2009 eased regulations, inviting new institutions to enter the market, the Orlando Sentinel reported this week. Within five years, the number of nursing programs in the state more than doubled. Many were for-profit institutions that churned out students whose pricey degrees left them unable to become licensed nurses.
Overdorf said on Thursday that more than 900 new nursing education programs had opened statewide during the past 20 years.
Florida’s NCLEX passing rate, on par with other states’ before the 2009 law, is now among the worst in the country. That rate dropped to below 70% in some recent years, compared to a national average of 80% or more. It rose in 2024 to 85%, but there were fewer test takers from for-profit schools as scrutiny of them has increased, and it still trailed the national rate of 91%.
Over the past five years, graduates from for-profit schools have performed significantly worse than their nursing-school peers from public or nonprofit private schools.
Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston, asked Overdorf during Thursday’s session to recite the passing rates for Florida and the rest of the country, noting the comparisons are “pretty compelling.”
Overdorf read off Florida’s ranking compared with other states and territories for the past five years, including the most recent year, when he said Florida’s rate exceeded only U.S. Samoa’s.
“We are not doing well,” he said.
Florida also has a nursing shortage, with a projected need for 60,000 more nurses by 2035.
State lawmakers now seek to restore some of the nursing board’s ability to regulate nursing programs. The bill approved Thursday would allow board staff to conduct unannounced site visits, for instance, and require programs with NCLEX passage rates of less than 30% to refund the tuition of any student who fails to pass the exam.
Representatives passed the bill with little discussion. A Senate companion also has passed its first committee vote.
Rep. Rachel Saunders Plakon, R-Lake Mary, cast the lone dissenting vote. She did not speak during the discussion, and it was unclear why she opposed the proposal.
Florida lawmakers in both chambers approved similar legislation last year, but Gov. Ron DeSantis nixed the proposal, writing in his veto letter he feared it would “undermine the progress that has been made to bolster the state’s nursing workforce.”
Nonetheless, Overdorf ended Thursday’s discussion on an upbeat note.
“I look forward to the signage of this bill and having it move forward,” he said after the vote.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/01/15/florida-house-passes-nursing-school-oversight-bill-2/
