Florida recently overtook New York as the nation’s third-largest state.

With a booming population of 22 million and growing, the Sunshine State is making considerable investments in its public institutions of higher learning, while private universities are also seeing surging enrollment.

Here is a look at some of the top universities in Florida based on enrollment rates.

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University of Florida

Long famous for its legendary football program, the University of Florida now boasts an impressive academic record, and entrance is extremely competitive, with an acceptance rate of just 23%.

Located in northern Florida in Gainesville, it is the flagship school of the State University System of Florida. As the fifth-largest university in the country, it features over 57,000 students studying at 16 academic colleges.

Additionally, it offers numerous graduate programs, including medicine, pharmacy, engineering, law, business administration and dentistry.

Florida State University

Founded in 1851, Florida State University is located in Florida’s capital, Tallahassee.

Comprised of 16 colleges, it features a student body of over 45,000 hailing from all 50 states and 130 countries. It has an annual budget of $2.2 billion, and its athletics programs have won 20 NCAA Division I national championships. It currently offers 104 baccalaureate programs, 112 master’s degree programs, and 70 doctoral programs.

University of Miami

The University of Miami is a private research university, located in the Coral Gables neighborhood of Miami.

The university enrollment stands at nearly 20,000 students, and the school is the second-largest employer in Miami-Dade County. Like UF and FSU, it is renowned for its athletics programs, particularly football, in which it has won five national championships. Admission is highly competitive, with a 2023 acceptance rate of 18.5%.

University of Miami plays at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Samuel Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

University of Central Florida

Formerly known as Florida Technical University, the University of Central Florida is located near Orlando in unincorporated Orange County and features a study body of over 68,000.

It is particularly strong in science, technology, engineering and math, with a historical relationship with the U.S. Space Program at the nearby Kennedy Sapce Center. Located 13 miles east of downtown Orlando, the school features 230 degrees across 13 colleges.

Heavily research-focused, it is known for corporate partnerships with major companies, including Disney, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and Universal.

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Florida International University

Florida International University, a research university commonly known as FIU, was founded in 1965 by the state legislature and is located in Miami-Dade County.

Being the third-largest university in the state, it has a budget of over $1.7 billion and has invested more than $1 billion in research expenditures in the past five years. It has over 45,000 undergraduate students and 10,000 graduate students. FIU offers 60 baccalaureate programs, 81 master’s programs and 34 doctoral programs. It features a student body from every state, including a considerable international student population, with the largest student groups coming from Venezuela, China, Kuwait, India, Brazil, and Cuba.

Students on campus at the Florida International University in Miami. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Florida Atlantic University

Florida Atlantic University is a public research university in Boca Raton, with 180 undergraduate and graduate programs across 10 colleges.

Its 30,000 students hail from all 50 states and 180 countries. The school consistently ranks as one of the most diverse in the nation, and it receives high marks for its two featured honors programs: the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College and the University Scholars Program.

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Florida A&M University

Florida A&M, located in Tallahassee, is a historically Black land-grant school, founded in 1887.

It is the third-largest historically Black university in the nation, and its creation was promoted by prominent abolitionist and Florida legislator Jonathan C. Gibbs. It offers 54 bachelor’s degrees, 29 master’s degrees, and 12 doctoral programs, and competes in NCAA Division I in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

University of South Florida

The University of South Florida was founded in 1956, with its flagship campus in Tampa.

Additionally, it has satellite campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. Its 14 colleges feature over 240 undergraduate and graduate level programs. The fourth-largest school in the state, its 50,000 student body comes from all 50 states and 145 countries.

Known for its cutting edge research, the USF community boasts over 2,400 patents, while the National Academy of Inventors and the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame are located on school grounds.

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The Florida high-school student with autism accused of violently attacking a teacher’s aide over a Nintendo game has filed a stunning lawsuit against the school district, accusing it of failing to make interventions to address his bad behavior even though he was said to be a “ticking time bomb.”

Brendan Depa, 18, has filed a lawsuit against Flagler County Public Schools, accusing the district of failing to meet his needs in the lead-up to the shocking February 21 incident that was caught on video and went viral.

Depa was 17 when he allegedly attacked teacher’s aide Joan Naydich at Matanzas High School in Palm Coast. Surveillance video released by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office allegedly shows the 6-foot-6, 270-pound student running up to the teacher’s aide, pushing her to the ground, and then continuing to punch and kick her.

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The teacher’s aide is seen on the ground for several minutes before getting up with the help of others.

Naydich told FOX 35 Orlando she had suffered five broken ribs, a severe concussion, loss of hearing in one of her ears and other issues as a result of the beating. 

The incident was sparked after Depa was refused permission to use a Nintendo Switch console. 

The complaint alleges that the district failed to address Depa’s disabilities through a proper behavioral plan on multiple occasions, ultimately leading to the attack.

“The district should be held to account for its failures which have forever changed the trajectory of this young man’s life,” a portion of the lawsuit reads. 

It says that he has a history of trauma and mental health issues, along with several disabilities that impact him in school settings.

“[Depa] is smart, but he has been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and has communication deficits that were not properly addressed. His explosive nature was also ignored and his need for social and pragmatic language interventions were not sufficiently addressed,” the lawsuit reads. 

The complaint alleges that the school ignored Depa’s need for social and “pragmatic language interventions” and should have provided him with direct instructions on how to problem-solve and express himself.

For instance, he spat at a student and verbally threatened another by saying that the student should die. He also said he should have shot a student. The lawsuit argues that the school had not properly dealt with those incidents.

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Joan Naydich is seen in court as Brendan Depa is escorted back to holding cells on March 9, 2023. In the court hearing, Naydich sought a permanent injunction against Depa. (David Tucker/News Journal/USA Today Network)

“Had these issues been addressed in real-time, [Depa] would not have harmed the paraprofessional and would not have been arrested and facing significant time incarcerated,” the complaint reads. 

The suit alleges that a teacher’s aide and Depa exchanged words and that the student was then reprimanded in front of his peers, eventually being punished by being denied the Nintendo though other students were allowed theirs.

The school, staff and district knew that the Nintendo, and its use on the school campus was a “trigger for escalating behaviors,” prompting Depa to spit on Naydich, according to the filing. 

When Naydic stormed out of the classroom to report him for assault, Depa followed her and launched his vicious attack.

The teen has filed a request for a due process hearing under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It asks for a determination that Flagler County Public Schools’ actions before and after February 2023 led to the violent incident. 

A spokesperson for Flagler Schools tells Fox 35 Orlando that the district is not commenting on the complaint. 

Depa, who is being charged as an adult, pleaded no contest late last year to a first-degree felony aggravated battery on an elected official or education employee charge that could be punishable by up to 30 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for May 1, Fox 35 reports.

Brendan Depa with his attorneys in court last year. Depa has filed a stunning lawsuit against the school district, accusing it of failing to make interventions to address his bad behavior since he was a “ticking time bomb.” (David TuckerNews Journal/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Naydich has denied taking the Nintendo Switch away from Depa and that he was actually angry because another staff member would not allow him to play it. 

As well as physical injuries, Naydich says she has faced financial and emotional hurdles since the attack.  

“Unfortunately, a lot of my injuries that are not visible I’m going to have for the rest of my life,” Naydich previously told FOX 35 Orlando, referring to slowed speech, issues with patience and “difficulty with what she considers routine cognitive functions.”

“Everybody that knows me or knew me [before the attack] knows that I’m a totally different person now. My whole life was just turned upside down.” 

Naydich was granted a permanent injunction for protection against repeated violence against Depa in March 2023.

Court documents obtained by Fox News Digital show that Depa has had three prior misdemeanor battery charges, in March 2019, April 2019 and June 2019. All the misdemeanor charges stem from the 13th Judicial Circuit, which is located in Hillsborough County.

For those charges, court records show that Depa completed a program within the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Fox News’ Pilar Aris and Adam Sabes contributed to this report.

A 27-year-old boxer died on Thursday after spending three weeks in a medically induced coma from his last fight.

Heavyweight Ardi Ndembo was knocked unconscious during his April 5 bout against Nestor Santana in Miami.

He was then transported to a local hospital, where he was placed in a coma, but he died earlier this week.

“We at Viva Promotions mourn the loss of Ardi Ndembo, a talented Congolese boxer who tragically passed away after a knockout in a Team Combat League match on April 5,” the promotion said in a statement, via the New York Post. “He remained in an induced coma until his untimely death. RIP Ardi Ndembo!”

Floyd Mayweather’s uncle, Jeff, works with the Team Combat League on the same team that Ndembo represented when he fought.

“Boxing’s a sport where you grow up watching it and loving it, but there’s so much risk involved,” Mayweather told The Sun. “Anyone can lose their life from boxing. When something like this happens, it wakes up the whole entire world.

Boxing gloves laying on a mat inside a boxing ring.  (Fernando Lavoz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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“I don’t think boxing’s a bad sport, because you can die in any sport. You drive a race car at 200 mph, if it slides, you’re going to die, too. You can die in any sport, but boxing is a brutal sport.”

The league gave the fighter a 10-bell salute and is matching donations made to a GoFundMe up to $25,000.

The boxing ring ahead of the heavyweight unification rematch between Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine and Anthony Joshua of Great Britain within the ‘Rage on the Red Sea’ boxing competitions at the King Abdullah Sports Complex’s Super Dome Hall in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on August 20, 2022.  (Ayman Yaqoob/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Ndembo, who was Congolese, was 8-0 entering the fight earlier this month. He is survived by his wife and two children.

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