Public colleges and universities account for almost 75 percent of all undergraduate students in the U.S. The best public colleges in Florida provide broad access to reputable degree programs, affordable tuition, and sprawling educational communities.
Coming in under the national tuition average at $6,360, Florida’s colleges and universities make earning your degree affordable. Prospective students can choose from 40 public and 50 private institutions that award associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in fields like anthropology, nursing, law, religious studies, and earth sciences. With over 165,000 students across eight campuses and 21 outreach centers, Miami Dade College is the largest public college in the state with a tuition of $3,000.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
Students seeking a religious school can choose from 21 colleges and universities that are grounded in Judeo-Christian, Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, and Christian principals. Ranked as the top two schools, the University of Florida (UF) and Florida State University (FSU) both have large student populations, with just over 45,000 at UF and just under 39,000 as FSU. Both are also affordable, with tuition at $6,000 and $7,000, respectively.
At $50,000, the University of Miami is the most expensive private college in the state and has graduated influential people, such as Gene Roddenberry, Sylvester Stallone, and Dwayne The Rock
Johnson. Florida also offers its nursing students up to $4,000 in loan forgiveness through their Nursing Student Loan Forgiveness Program.
Coastal cities, sandy beaches, orange groves, and vibrant flowers — it’s no wonder Florida is called The Sunshine State. Home to the famous Everglades National Park and Disney World, Florida also boasts 90 higher education institutes.
With so many options and in such a beautiful setting, Florida has a lot to offer higher education students. Check out Florida’s best degree programs and top career paths.
Public and private colleges and universities operate under different business models — one is a private company with private funding; the other is owned by the state and receives both state and federal funding to operate. If you’re weighing the pros and cons of private vs. public college, consider that many public colleges provide diverse course offerings, influential professors, and an excellent return on your investment.
Public colleges are schools that receive most of their funding from tax revenues. As a result, the cost of a four-year degree at a public university is often lower than the equivalent cost at a private college — especially for students attending a public school in their home state. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the average annual cost (tuition, fees, room and board for full-time students) at a four-year public university was slightly over $20,000. In contrast, private universities cost, on average, nearly $43,000 annually.
This list is composed entirely of public colleges and universities that offer four-year undergraduate degrees. We’ve identified 40 public universities in Florida. The list below of the 15 best public universities in the state satisfies the following three conditions:
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why, at the undergraduate level, we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Concentrated Influence”. Concentrated Influence takes the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers (including faculty and alums) and divides it by the school’s total number of undergraduates.
Using concentrated influence gives small and mid-sized schools an opportunity to shine by taking away the size advantage of larger universities. A small school with proportionately more influential faculty than a large school, whose influence in absolute terms may be bigger, will nonetheless score higher in a concentrated influence ranking. Our approach highlights undergraduate schools that truly rank for excellence, regardless of size.
If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
64%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/28
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New College of Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
31%
Graduation
89%
Student body
47K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/30
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University of Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
32%
Graduation
84%
Student body
40K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/28
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Florida State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
49%
Graduation
74%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/27
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University of South Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
33%
Graduation
55%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1095/21
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Florida A&M University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
67%
Student body
48K
Median SAT/ACT
1195/25
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Florida International University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
56%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1160/24
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Florida Atlantic University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
45%
Graduation
74%
Student body
60K
Median SAT/ACT
1255/27
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University of Central Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
47%
Student body
12K
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Seminole State College of Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
48%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
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University of West Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
66%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1175/22
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University of North Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
53%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/23
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Florida Gulf Coast University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$2K
Graduation
47%
Student body
11K
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Eastern Florida State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
43%
Student body
11K
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Indian River State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Acceptance
24%
Median SAT/ACT
1225/27
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