Longwood nursing school stays open under state probation, tighter oversight
Longwood’s Riggs College can keep enrolling nurses, but only with probation and a 40-student admissions cap after weak NCLEX results raised red flags.
Riggs College of Allied Health will keep enrolling nursing students in Longwood, but Florida regulators are doing it under probation and tighter limits that put Seminole County students in a risky spot. The school’s future now hinges on whether it can turn around exam results, protect tuition dollars and deliver graduates who can actually move into licensed nursing jobs.
The college sits at 2180 W. State Rd. 434, Suite 1124, and state records list Oladimeji Adekunle as the contact. The Florida Department of Health’s medical quality system shows its nursing education program under license number NPRN704177, with the status marked probation and annual licensure dating to Sept. 2, 2020. Riggs offers an RN-to-BSN bachelor’s track, an LPN-to-RN associate program, a Nursing (RN 704177) associate program and a Practical Nursing diploma program.
The problem for students is not just regulation, but outcomes. The college’s associate degree nursing program is listed by state health officials as not accredited, and its 2025 cumulative first-time NCLEX-RN pass rate was below 70 percent. The state’s Florida Center for Nursing says prelicensure programs are the pipeline to the nursing workforce, and it tracks first-attempt NCLEX results against national benchmarks using calendar-year data, not academic-year totals. Regulators still allowed the program to operate, but they capped new admissions at 40 students a year, a sign they were not willing to shut the school down while still signaling serious concern.
That matters in Seminole County because nursing school is not a cheap gamble. Riggs does not participate in federal student aid, so students are pushed toward private financing while taking on the risk that a probationary program may not deliver the licensure results they need. College president Oladimeji Adekunle told commissioners the school was not giving up, but officials pressed for stronger accountability as the program remained under scrutiny.
The broader Florida backdrop is just as stark. An Orlando Sentinel report in March said Riggs is one of more than 70 nursing programs in the state with first-time NCLEX-RN passage rates at least 10 percentage points below the national average, even as Florida is expected to need about 60,000 new health-care workers by 2035. Lawmakers tried again in 2026 to tighten oversight of nursing schools, but the Senate version stalled, leaving regulators as the main check on programs that can shape a student’s career before a single license is earned.
Riggs is also moving through the accreditation pipeline. ACEN lists its associate nursing and practical nursing tracks as candidate programs, with candidacy beginning Jan. 21, 2025 and an initial site visit scheduled for Oct. 20-22, 2026. For students in Longwood, the immediate reality is simpler: the school remains open, but every new enrollment now comes with a public warning attached.
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