Washington — In the 1980s, higher-education leaders convened to study the emerging issue of regulating distance-learning programs that cross state borders. As technology became more accepted, they predicted, the inevitable result would be a more coordinated, national approach to regulation.
Not quite. Distance-learning technology has changed, with the Internet supplanting television, but the regulatory maze is getting worse, according to a recent report from a group of online providers calling for reform.
That was the backdrop as distance educators, state regulators, and accreditors assembled here Tuesday in a fresh attempt to reconcile the desires of a booming cross-border online-education industry with the need to protect consumers from shady online operators and resolve their complaints.
Both Tuesday’s meeting and the new report underscored how this subject can inspire brass-knuckled educational politics, accusations of selective enforcement, and discomfort with for-profit education.
The problem, in the eyes of those who want reform, is a decentralized higher-education system that empowers each state to establish its own rules. Distance institutions must often get approval to do business in each jurisdiction. That means untangling a “complex and redundant web of processes, regulations, and standards,” says the report, called “Aligning State Approval and Regional Accreditation for Online Postsecondary Institutions.” It costs lots of money, takes lots of time, and ultimately restricts access to education, the report argues.
“We’ve got a structure here that was created for the 19th and 20th century,” says John F. Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, a distance-learning institution based in New York. “It is not appropriate for the 21st century.”
The situation is made worse because some states “create defensive barriers to protect in-state institutions from external competition,” says the new report, published by the Presidents’ Forum, a collaboration of national, adult-serving institutions that embrace online education. Local colleges or professional associations occasionally prod institutions to build protectionist walls. “Some may discriminate specifically against online learning,” the report says.
The picture looks different from the perspective of Alan Contreras, a bearded, bespectacled, bowtie-wearing Oregon official who jokingly introduced himself on Tuesday as “that very wicked creature, a state regulator.”
The big issue is who deals with problems like student complaints, administrative misbehavior, and unqualified faculty, he says. State licensing agencies set up their “vast list of rules” to “prevent problems and resolve those that occur,” he says, “because no one else can or will.”
“They are arguing that if you are an accredited institution, that is good enough to let you operate anywhere in the U.S. — that’s really the bottom line,” he says of those calling for reform. “The problem with that is that accrediting bodies don’t really have any problem-solving or enforcement capacity when issues come up.”
An “inconvenient truth,” Mr. Contreras adds, is that, at least in his office, most issues that come up involve for-profit colleges.
The report suggests several strategies to resolve the problem: an agreed-upon body of required student and institutional data, a template of state standards, and avoiding redundancy by accepting the judgments of other states.
So will change happen this time? Michael B. Goldstein, a higher-education lawyer here, points out that circumstances are different now.
“One fundamental change is you’ve got big, mainstream institutions that are now getting very substantially into this area,” he says. “And the other is you’ve got high-demand areas like teaching and nursing, which really need these kinds of extended programs offered by high-quality institutions. Put those together, and I think there will be some fundamental change.”
5 Responses to As Online Education Grows, National Providers Struggle With State Regulations
johngoss - October 14, 2009 at 9:27 am
There seem to be two different issues at play here. THe first is the acceptance of transfer credits by regionally accredited institutions from other regionally accredited institutions, where each institution sets its requirements and expectations regarding what courses will or will not be accepted based on the receiving institutions’ curricula and the appropriateness of a course’s content with respect to another institution’s established curriculum. Here regional accreditation is a national marker of quality and accpetability with a local decision based on distinct programmatic requirements and public interest considerations. This long standing practice ensures quality control at the institutional level (maintaining program integrity rather than awarding degrees based on a collection of courses cobbled together from any number of institutions, accredited or not). Acrreditors, institutions and state regulators play important yet distinct roles in this well intentioned process. The second, State regulation and the licensing of out-of-state institutions within a jurisdiction, is neitehr outdated nor cumbersome. It is certainly protectionistic, however, it could be argued that States have an obligation to “protect” institutions within their respective jursdictions, espcially if the institution is receiving public funds (taxpaper dollars), maintaining both the instituion’s viability and its ability to serve the tavpaying consitutency supporting the missions of State colleges and universities. This too is a long standing practice, and the mere fact that the delivery modality has changed (distance learning rather than face-to-face instruction) does not change the fundamental principle informing States’ regulatory practices. That online education is more easily delivered does not change the policy imperative that States can and should reasonably regulate the higher education business community respecting what is essentially a public good.
lgalizio - October 14, 2009 at 9:40 am
What relevance to the set of issues in this article is the physical description of Mr. Contreras other than a blatant attempt by the Chronicle’s author to manufacture a stereotype of an academic who is perceived by online profiteers as archaic and out-of-touch?There are quality online operations, and then there are plenty of digital diploma mills and sham operations in existence. Reasonable people can disagree on the important set of issues raised in this article. The Chronicle does its readers a disservice by portraying its bias with a none-too-subtle description of regulators concerned with protecting citizens and institutions from bad actors in the field.
olddean - October 14, 2009 at 10:13 am
As an early advocate of distance learning and a representative of a major national consortium of universities I faced the issue of crossing state lines and encountereing regulators (late 80′s).Oregon was among the most restrictive on the initial reading. After meeting with them, in Salem, they were eminently fair in evaluating what was being offered while protecting their standards. Some exceptions were made and became a standard for later use. I don’t remember a beard, spectacles or a bow tie; I only remember a group dedicted to ensuring qulity, avoiding shams and diploma mills, and encouraging new ventures that were good for Oregon.
paievoli - October 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The 21st century is the key. There is anew business model forming for academia and those thqat accept it will survive. Those that do not will perish. If you think this year was bad financially for schools wait until next year when the stimulus for state schools goes away. You are going to have millions of state students who can’t afford to continue on in their studies. And student loans will be very tight. Academia needs to redefine its business model.
11901736 - October 17, 2009 at 10:56 am
One aspect of this is that each state has its own department of education and its own standards for K-12 teaching (texts, content standards, etc. etc.), as well as for some of the faculty (for example, in Penna. if I recall correctly, an English secondary-ed program was expected to have at least one faculty member who had served at least two years as a lead teacher in high school in the state of Penna.). So long as that is the case, presumably there will be continuing problems trying either to generate standardized courses, or to maintain a staff of faculty with the necessary credentials (in a program based in part on education majors, that is) that will satisfy the various state standards.