Keywords
Dual enrollment; Fourteenth Amendment; Florida's dual enrollment program; dual enrollment law; Florida education; education protected by the Constitution
Abstract
Florida’s dual enrollment program is an offering within the state’s basic education package, allowing secondary students to participate in postsecondary courses while simultaneously earning secondary and postsecondary credit. In Florida, around 80,000 students participate annually, and 1.5 million students are within the grade range eligible for participation in the program. This thesis analyzes how the program, and subsequently eligible students, are granted constitutional protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. The author conducted this research to highlight the expansive nature of constitutional law and demonstrate how Florida’s model is unique among state-mandated dual/concurrent enrollment programs. To conduct the necessary research, the author reviewed statutory, regulatory, case, and constitutional law to make the argument that Florida’s model of the program receives protection under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Further, using a comparative analysis, the author analyzes the laws surrounding Ohio’s and Pennsylvania’s dual enrollment programs to show how the specific wording of Florida’s statutes provides the necessary elements to establish constitutional protections. Beyond the traditional arguments analyzed in the thesis, the author also shows how the Florida Constitution, statutory, and regulatory provisions establish Fourteenth Amendment protections for the program and eligible students. After establishing that Florida’s model of dual enrollment is constitutionally protected, the author recommends the use of conditional funding under the Taxing and Spending Clause, provided by Congress to the states, to improve dual enrollment laws nationwide.
Thesis Completion Year
2025
Thesis Completion Semester
Fall
Thesis Chair
James Beckman
College
College of Community Innovation and Education
Department
Legal Studies
Thesis Discipline
Law
Language
English
Access Status
Open Access
Length of Campus Access
None
Campus Location
UCF Downtown
STARS Citation
Hamman, William H., "An Analysis of Florida's Dual Enrollment Laws: How Florida's Model is Uniquely Protected by the Fourteenth Amendment" (2025). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 434.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/434
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Education Law Commons, Fourteenth Amendment Commons, Jurisprudence Commons
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