GAO Report on Distance Education

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report today on improving oversight of distance education. The GAO's purpose for the research was to determine

(1) the characteristics of distance education today
(2) the characteristics of students participating in distance education
(3) how the quality of distance education is being assessed
(4) how Education monitors distance education in its stewardship of federal student aid funds.

GAO’s findings include: To improve its oversight and monitoring of federal student aid funds, Education should develop a plan on how it could best use the new distance education data NCES is collecting and provide input to NCES on future data collections.(GAO-12-39, 2011)

The report can be accesses here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1239.pdf

Rene