With higher education institutions having their online programs subject to an array of individual state requirements, ensuring regulatory compliance has proven challenging for those schools operating in multiple states. In recent years, however, state government officials, higher education administrators and online education advocates have grown increasingly cognizant of the impact state policies are having on the growth of online education.
In a just-released policy brief that outlines some of the challenges states confront in regulating online education, a national association representing U.S. governors has advised that state chief executives “consider calling for a review of current state laws and regulations surrounding authorization of online programs” of their respective state.
The Washington-based National Governors Association (NGA), in Regulating Online Postsecondary Education: State Issues and Options, released late last week, urges that as “states consider a number of options for changing their authorization policies and practices for online postsecondary programs, governors should consider requesting a review of existing laws and regulations in this area.”
“The review would be designed to identify opportunities for simplifying and streamlining the process and to explore the possibility of joining an interstate reciprocity agreement for authorization,” the policy brief states. In addition, reviews should focus on clarifying the purpose of state regulation, state requirements for authorizing courses and programs and state capacity for and costs of regulating programs.
Travis Reindl, the education division program director in the NGA Center for Best Practices, says that with the research and advocacy being undertaken by groups such as the State Higher Education Executive Officers and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, on online education regulation, governors “have a unique vantage point in trying to streamline regulations and identify opportunities for [state] agencies to work together to get the job of regulating done as efficiently as possible.”
“This brief was really intended to help governors and their staffs think about the policies and the organizations that they have in place now to regulate online education and to think about what changes might need to be made in a world where we see even more of our students take online courses and programs, and do it in a way that protects the consumer,” he says.
