Humboldt International University (HIU) welcomes Secretary McMahon's call for American colleges and universities to speak plainly with the public about how we operate and whom we serve. HIU recognize the guidance issued to institutions under the purview of the Florida Commission for Independent Education (CIE), which rightly observes that not every one of the Secretary's seven questions bears with equal weight on every institution. HIU is a Florida-licensed, DEAC-accredited, 100 percent online institution serving working adult learners the majority based in Florida, elsewhere in the United States, and across Latin America through competency-based undergraduate and graduate programs in business, information technology, artificial intelligence, leadership, and education. We are a teaching, workforce-focused institution, and a research university with no federal research portfolio. That distinction shapes how several of the seven questions apply to us, but it does not diminish our obligation to answer all seven with specificity. We do so below.
1. Transparency and Merit in Admissions
HIU's admissions criteria are published in full in our institutional Catalog and are applied identically to every applicant. Admission decisions rest on documented academic preparation:
- a verified high school diploma or equivalent for undergraduate programs,
- a verified prior degree with an appropriate GPA for graduate and doctoral programs evaluated by our Admissions Representative according to the university's General Admission Requirements.
We apply the same admission requirements and fee structure to domestic and international applicants alike, and we do not discriminate in admission or recruitment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, ancestry, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, or military status, consistent with our Non-Discrimination Policy.
To guard against fraudulent or misrepresented credentials, HIU verifies transcripts directly with issuing institutions when necessary, authenticates foreign credentials through recognized evaluation agencies, and reserves the right to deny or revoke admission where documentation cannot be verified. Provisional admission is time-limited and does not permit credit-bearing coursework until all documentation is confirmed. Every applicant, regardless of background, is held to the same evidentiary standard before matriculation.
2. Free Inquiry, Viewpoint Diversity, and Protection of Institutional Operations
HIU is a fully online university with no physical classrooms and no in-person campus assembly; the traditional risks of encampments, building occupations, or the disruption of in-person lectures do not arise in our operating model in the way they do at residential institutions. That said, we take seriously our obligation to protect open, respectful academic discourse in the environments we do operate discussion forums, synchronous sessions, and communications platforms.
Our Netiquette policy requires that all student and faculty communication remain professional, evidence-based, and free of harassment, and our Student Conduct and Integrity policy authorizes disciplinary action, up to dismissal, for conduct that is abusive, disruptive, or that interferes with another student's or instructor's ability to participate in coursework.
Our Student Complaint-Grievance Policy provides a documented, timely channel for any student, faculty member, or staff member to raise concerns, including allegations of discrimination or harassment, with a guaranteed initial response within seven calendar days and resolution efforts within thirty. We do not condition participation in academic discussion on ideological conformity, and our courses, particularly those in business, economics, international trade, and healthcare, are designed around case analysis and open debate of competing frameworks, not a single prescribed viewpoint. HIU affirms the right of students and faculty to express, debate, and challenge ideas including ideas that may be unpopular or contested within the norms of evidence-based academic discourse. No student or faculty member is penalized for holding or expressing a minority viewpoint on any academic, professional, or civic question, provided that expression does not constitute harassment or violate our conduct policies.
3. Intellectual Pluralism in Curriculum and Hiring
Faculty qualifications at HIU are governed by documented, credential-based standards tied to the level of instruction: a master's degree or higher for undergraduate faculty, a terminal degree for graduate faculty, and sustained scholarly or professional contribution for doctoral faculty, as set out in our Curriculum and Instructional Design Manual. Where a candidate does not hold the traditional credential but demonstrates equivalent professional depth, our Faculty Equivalency Policy requires a documented, multi-step review by academic leadership and a Faculty Credentials Committee before any equivalency is granted, equivalency is the exception, not the norm, and every decision is retained for audit. Curriculum content is reviewed on an ongoing basis by discipline-based Academic Groups (General Business, Information Technology, Education, and Healthcare) operating under our Advisory Board, whose members are deliberately international rosters of academics and practitioners across more than a dozen countries.
This structure is designed to keep course content grounded in current, defensible professional and disciplinary standards rather than any single institutional orthodoxy, and to ensure that hiring and curriculum decisions are made on the basis of documented expertise, not ideological screening. HIU does not impose prescribed ideological frameworks whether diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates, critical theory constructs, or any other non-disciplinary orthodoxy as required content in its curricula. Course content is selected on the basis of disciplinary rigor, workforce relevance, and the established intellectual traditions of each field of study.
4. Affordability, Cost Discipline, Pricing Transparency, and Student Outcomes
HIU publishes a complete, fixed tuition and fee schedule in its Catalog per-credit tuition by degree level, a flat technology fee, and other charges pertaining to specific curriculum, and that schedule does not change for a student once they sign their Enrollment Agreement, except in cases of course failure or program withdrawal. We offer three payment plan structures (Monthly, Semester, and Program) so students can align payment with their financial circumstances, and our cancellation and refund policies meet or exceed Florida Commission for Independent Education requirements, including a guaranteed five-calendar-day cancellation window with full refund.
On outcomes, HIU reports course completion rates, program graduation rates, and student satisfaction data to DEAC annually, and that data is evaluated against DEAC's published Student Achievement Benchmarks for each credential level. Our most recent DEAC Annual Report (2025) documents the following verified institutional outcomes: overall graduation rates averaged 62.2%, with doctoral programs reaching 78.3% and the Doctorate in Education achieving 80.95%; course completion rates ranged from 86.5% in doctoral programs to 100% in associate's programs; and overall student satisfaction reached 96.2%, with instructor satisfaction at 96.4% and course satisfaction at 95.9%. These figures are published on our Student Achievement page at https://hiuniversity.com/student-complaint-grievance-procedures-eng.pdf and submitted to DEAC annually. We track graduate employment status through our Verification of Employment process, required under Florida Department of Education/CIE rules, confirming that graduates are employed or continuing in their professional roles at the time of program completion—consistent with HIU's mission to serve working adult learners who are already part of the workforce. HIU does not collect or require disclosure of student income or salary data; our enrollment model does not involve federal financial aid, and consequently we report employment status rather than wage outcomes. We support job readiness through the Professional Jobs Portal within our Virtual Library and structured career services. HIU does not receive federal aid of any kind as an inducement to enroll, and our recruitment materials are reviewed by our Director of Administration for accuracy before publication, consistent with Florida's Fair Consumer Practices rule.
5. Academic Rigor, Grade Inflation, and Assessment Integrity in the Age of AI
HIU's academic model is competency-based: students advance by demonstrating measurable mastery of defined learning outcomes, not by accumulating seat time. Every course is built from a Direct Measure of Assessment tied to a specific, Bloom's-Taxonomy-calibrated learning outcome, and our grading scale is applied consistently across all programs, with a mandatory course repetition requirement for failing or borderline graduate work, a structural safeguard against grade inflation. We have a specific, published policy governing student use of artificial intelligence in academic work. AI tools may be used to support understanding, organize ideas, or refine grammar; they may not be used to generate original analysis, essays, or projects submitted as a student's own work. Faculty use plagiarism-detection software on every course, and HIU requires individualized, one-on-one video proctoring sessions for every student in every course between Weeks 4 and 7, during which the student must discuss their submitted work with the instructor to demonstrate authentic authorship and understanding, a safeguard specifically designed to catch AI-generated or otherwise inauthentic work that automated detection alone might miss. Undisclosed AI use is treated as a violation of academic integrity policy and is subject to the same escalating consequence structure as plagiarism.
6. Safeguarding Academic Programs from Malign Foreign Influence
As a teaching-focused institution without a federally funded research enterprise, HIU does not hold sponsored research grants, classified contracts, or federally funded laboratories that present the foreign-influence exposure associated with major research universities. Where HIU does engage internationally, for example, in evaluating foreign credentials through recognized third-party evaluation agencies, or in any future expansion of instructional activity outside the United States, such engagement is subject to prior review and, where required, approval under our accreditor's substantive-change process for international activities and is documented in our institutional records. Members of our Advisory Board and governing leadership are vetted for integrity and conflicts of interest, and HIU maintains no formal institutional relationships with foreign governments or state-directed entities.
7. Prioritizing American Students and Florida's Workforce Needs
HIU was built in Miami specifically to serve the workforce needs of a multicultural, internationally engaged regional economy, and that mission has not changed. Our undergraduate and graduate concentrations in International Business, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship are explicitly designed to prepare graduates for entry-level and advancement roles in Florida's trade- and commerce-driven labor market, and our newer Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence program was built to meet documented, current employer demand for applied AI, data science, and machine learning competency. Every program's course description and outcome are reviewed for continued relevance to actual employer needs through our Program Advisory Councils, not abstract academic interest alone.
HIU does not currently offer any program requiring professional licensure, and we disclose that fact plainly in our Catalog so that no student enrolls under a mistaken assumption about licensure eligibility. For the working adults, many of them Florida residents balancing employment and family responsibilities, who make up the large majority of our student body, our competency-based, asynchronous-first model exists precisely to remove unnecessary barriers between American students and credentials that translate directly into employment and career advancement.