State Authorization Negotiated Rulemaking Concludes Without Reaching Consensus
State authorization of distance education programs has been under the focus of Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) , as well as colleges and universities and the United States Department of Education (USDE) in the recent past.
Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) reflects the voice of 3000 degree-grating organizations in matters related to self-regualtion and accreditation. The council publishes news, information and policy briefs about recent developments that affect the relationship of institutions of higher education with their clients as well as with the state and federal government.
This month CHEA reported the results of the USDE negotiated rule making regarding authorization of distance education programs. The report stated that “Under new program integrity regulations proposed by USDE, online educational offerings by institutions would require regulatory approval from every state in which they enroll students. The revised rules would require that each branch campus or additional location in a foreign country be legally authorized to operate by an appropriate authority in that country and be approved by the institution’s recognized accrediting organization.” Please see Negotiated Rulemaking 2013-2014 Program Integrity and Improvement for the specific language of the regulation.
In a related development National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) claimed that: “Increasing numbers of state and federal investigations have revealed the widespread use of deceptive and illegal practices throughout the for-profit higher education sector, including by large accredited schools owned by Wall Street investors. Hundreds of thousands of students [were] enrolled in inferior educational programs and ended up with nothing but debt.” The Center issued a report on how states can do a better job to rein in these abuses and protect students.
In response to these developments, the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NCSARA) has issued a letter that supports the idea of oversight for for-profit distance education providers in the home state in which they reside, as compared to the government rule making that requires oversight and approval in every state. The staff of NCSARA in an open letter to the NCLC claimed that the report published by NCLC is misleading about the role of NCSARA.
A State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) is an agreement among its member states, districts and U.S. territories that establishes comparable national standards for interstate offering of postsecondary distance-education courses and programs. It is intended to make it easier for students to take online courses offered by postsecondary institutions in a state other than the one where they reside. SARA is overseen by a national council and administered by four regional higher education compacts, MHEC, NEBHE, SREB and WICHE. The four SARA agreements of those compacts are collectively treated as a plural, the Agreements.
In this letter NCSARA highlighted its specific standards for all participating institutions, which require appropriate institutional behavior regarding:
- Veracity of recruitment and marketing materials;
- Accuracy of job placement data;
- Accuracy of information about tuition, fees and financial aid;
- Complete and accurate admission requirements for courses and programs;
- Accuracy of information about the institution’s accreditation and/or any programmatic/specialized accreditation held by the institution’s programs;
- Accuracy of information about whether course work meets any relevant professional licensing requirements or the requirements of specialized accrediting bodies;
- Accuracy of information about whether the institution’s course work will transfer to other institutions; and
- Operation of distance education programs consistent with practices expected by institutional accreditors (and, if applicable, programmatic/specialized accreditors) and/or the Interregional Guidelines for the Evaluation of Distance Education, adopted in 2011 by the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions. (All SARA institutions will agree to comply with those Guidelines.)
Participating institutions will agree to follow the Interregional Guidelines for the Evaluation of Distance Education Programs (Online Learning) for best practices in postsecondary distance education developed by leading practitioners of distance education and adopted by the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC).
