HCI College Lawsuit: Claims, CFPB Position, and Court Ruling

The HCI College lawsuit is a proposed class action filed in December 2022 by five former nursing students who allege the for-profit Florida school blocked them from graduating and sitting for the NCLEX-RN licensing exam so it could inflate its reported pass rates, overcharged for a required capstone course, and targeted students of color with predatory practices. The case, Roberson v. Health Career Institute LLC, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and was marked terminated on November 11, 2024, with no publicly reported settlement terms.¹

Who Sued and What They Are Asking For

The named plaintiffs are Brittany Roberson, Rebecca Freeman, Bianca Viñas, Tiffany King, and Tresha Thompson. They enrolled in HCI’s nursing program between 2020 and 2022 and filed suit on December 2, 2022, against HCI College, its parent company Florian Education Investors, and Florian’s CEO Steven Hart.¹ The complaint defines a proposed class of at least 400 people and estimates aggregate damages of roughly $12 million, calculated from average tuition for three semesters spread across the class.²

Plaintiff Rebecca Freeman told the Project on Predatory Student Lending: “The reason I chose HCI was because they said it was made for working adults. What you don’t know going in is that they are setting you up to fail — it’s all sunshine and butterflies until you sign on the dotted line.”³

The Practices at the Center of the Case

The complaint says HCI put “unfair and arbitrary barriers” between students and the NCLEX. Chief among them was a policy called the “50% rule.” On top of an 80% overall score on a proctored exam, students had to score at least 50% in every subcategory. Some subcategories contained only two or three questions, so missing a single question could sink the entire exam.⁴ The plaintiffs also allege HCI introduced unannounced exit exams and changed grading rules mid-program.

The alleged effect was a bottleneck at graduation. Eleven months after the plaintiffs’ scheduled December 2021 graduation, only nine graduates from their cohort had taken the NCLEX, even though more than 100 students had been in their core courses.⁵ By limiting who reached the exam to those most likely to pass, the plaintiffs say, HCI kept its reported pass rate high enough to avoid state-mandated probation or closure.

The stakes of that pass rate were real. The Florida Board of Nursing had already placed HCI’s original nursing program on probation in 2016 and 2018, and by 2018 its NCLEX pass rate had fallen below 50%, against a national average of 86%.⁵ While that program was on probation and headed for termination, HCI applied in May 2018 to open what it called a “new” nursing program at its West Palm Beach campus. Florida law requires the Board of Nursing to deny approval to new programs from an applicant already on probation, but the board approved the application in October 2018.⁴ The plaintiffs allege the “new” program used the same instructors, curriculum, facilities, and nursing director, and that its real purpose was to obtain a fresh NCLEX tracking code and reset the five-year accreditation clock. When the board terminated the original program in August 2019 for failing to obtain specialized accreditation, the new program kept enrolling students and told them there were “no graduate exam results to report” rather than revealing the old program’s history.

A separate financial claim targets HCI’s “Capstone” course. The plaintiffs allege HCI charged students more than $4,000 for a final course that was almost entirely administered by a third party and was available to the public for approximately $525.²

Discrimination Claims and the CFPB’s Position

The lawsuit also brings claims under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging HCI targeted students of color with predatory lending and deceptive enrollment.⁶

On April 13, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a statement of interest supporting the plaintiffs’ legal theory. The CFPB argued that ECOA reaches “any aspect of a credit transaction,” not just terms like interest rates, and that “discriminatory targeting,” sometimes called reverse redlining, violates the statute when a creditor targets a protected group with unfair or predatory practices. The agency also said plaintiffs at the pleading stage need only allege facts that “plausibly allege discrimination,” not meet the full prima facie standard.⁶

How the Court Ruled Before the Case Ended

On August 3, 2023, Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II ruled on the defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint, granting it in part and denying it in part. The court found that the complaint sufficiently alleged breach of contract claims tied to the testing and grading changes and to clinical placement requirements, and it established personal jurisdiction over Steven Hart and Florian Education Investors. The judge ordered the plaintiffs to refile to clarify which claims applied to which defendants.⁷

After the plaintiffs did so, the defendants moved again to partially dismiss. In December 2023, Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe recommended denying the motion outright. He found the allegations against Hart and Florian sufficient to support individual liability under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and he allowed the Capstone claim to proceed, holding that charging over $4,000 for a course sold to the public for $525 stated a plausible deceptive-practices claim.⁸

HCI’s Response

HCI president and CEO Pedro De Guzman disputed the central allegations in comments to MedPage Today. He said the school’s testing policies were meant to “protect the integrity of our program,” adding, “Sometimes the students aren’t happy with the toughness of the program, but we don’t make apologies for that.” He denied that HCI limited who could graduate to inflate pass rates and said the school disclosed the full history of its programs to enrolled students. De Guzman cited an 89% pass rate in the year before the September 2023 report and said that placed HCI in the “top 10% in the state” of Florida.⁴

Florida Department of Health records show reported NCLEX pass rates of 60.32% in 2021, 89.13% in 2022, 95.35% in 2023, and 94.44% in 2024.⁹ Whether those numbers reflect stronger teaching or the same gatekeeping the lawsuit challenges is one of the questions the case put in dispute.

Where Things Stand

Court records show the case was terminated on November 11, 2024, with the last docket entry filed January 28, 2025. The public docket does not state a reason, and no public reporting has confirmed whether the case ended in settlement, voluntary dismissal, or another disposition.¹

HCI College continues to operate both its West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale campuses, with active programs in nursing, practical nursing, medical assisting, and veterinary assisting listed in its 2025–2026 student catalog.¹⁰ Both campuses’ nursing programs now hold initial accreditation from the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, the specialized accreditation the original program failed to secure before regulators shut it down in 2019.¹¹

1
CourtListener. Roberson v. Health Career Institute LLC
2
The Health Law Firm. HCI Complaint
3
Project on Predatory Student Lending. Nursing Students Sue Florida College for Alleged NCLEX Scheme
4
MedPage Today. HCI College Special Report
5
Squarespace. HCI Class Action Complaint
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Roberson v. Health Career Institute LLC Amicus Brief
7
Squarespace. Order on Defendants Motion to Dismiss
8
CaseMine. Roberson v. Health Career Inst., Report and Recommendation
9
Florida Department of Health MQA. HCI College Nursing Program Details
10
HCI College. HCI Student Catalog 2025-2026
11
HCI College. Accreditation