Feds Delay State Authorization Rule

There is a simple solution.

Eject Maryland from the Union. There; all fixed. An additional benefit is now we can make fun of Baltimore, and consider the toll on I-95 foreign tax.

 

The whole thing is a mess because technology is outstripping the legal framework. This isn't happening only in education but the problems in education are thornier because unlike other areas such as privacy states have long held a traditional and historic role. Indeed, one of the primary concepts behind education is that the school serves in loco parentis, in the place of the parent who by definition is local. The difficulty is that with distance education the educational institution operates more along the lines of an absentee landlord than along the lines of a substitute parent. States are going to resist any strong push towards the the centralization of education because they want to defend their traditional turf but technology makes the foundation for state control over such turf increasingly tenuous. In my view the current situation is the worst of all worlds for students because they neither gain the benefits of centralized education nor the benefits of a local education. I suspect it will take another couple of decades but in the end technology will win out over states' rights and states will lose control of higher education, entirely.

 

That's a good legal analysis. That's my opinion as a non-attorney.

 

The system was designed in an era when education was an in-state activity.
Nobody imagined that someday a student could be located in one state, while his school could be located in another.

My prediction is that states will retain control, but that they will (eventually) agree on some common standard for the acceptance of out-of-state degree programs.

This has already happened with out-of-state degrees. States have control over degree standards, which can and do differ -- that's why some states allow unaccredited schools, while others do not. So in theory, a degree from State A will not necessarily meet the standards of State B.

Obviously this could pose big problems for people who move from state to state -- but in practice, it's usually a non-issue. Why? Because every state has agreed that regionally accredited degrees are valid, and most degrees meet this common standard. There is no national law that guarantees universal acceptance of RA degrees -- but it happens anyway, because every state has this policy.

So the states need to find some common standard for acceptance of out-of-state degree programs, just as they have found a common standard for acceptance of out-of-state degrees. It will probably take a while, but it will probably happen eventually.

 

Yep, the regional model is outdated. Why have 5/6 entities that do the same thing, when education is now a national activity.

 

ICS (now Penn Foster) was established as a correspondence school in 1890, which is certainly old by DL standards. However, this was long after the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution effectively handed education regulation to the states (in 1791). Furthermore, the oldest US institutions were being regulated by colonial governments (the predecessors to the states) as far back as 1636, when Harvard College was established by an act of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.

It appears that ICS/Penn Foster did not actually issue degrees until 1970, when they started granting "specialized associate's degrees". They did not issue bachelor's degrees until 2008.

 

Due to historical factors, we have six RA agencies, instead of just one. But is this really a problem? In practice, all RA degrees are generally accepted as completely equivalent, no matter which agency is involved. Exceptions may come up from time to time, but they seem pretty rare and unusual.

It could be argued that having six RA agencies instead of one is inefficient, and that this inefficiency increases the costs of RA (which are certainly not trivial). On the other hand, having multiple agencies may allow more freedom for experimentation with different policies. This may not really matter to traditional B&M schools; they cannot easily move their B&M campuses, so they are generally stuck with whatever agency handles their state. But DL schools have much more freedom to relocate, so in theory they can pick and choose between different regional accreditors when policy differences exist. For example, Northcentral University is in the process of relocating from Arizona to California, apparently because they would rather get accreditation from WASC, rather than from NCA.

 

6 x 50 = 300.

Seems needlessly costly.

RA is outdated given emerging nationalization of education. Only possible conclusion.

 

The arithmetic is correct, but it's not clear what the numbers are supposed to represent. 6 regional agencies x 50 US states ?

If so, the equation is invalid, because each regional agency only covers a regional subset of the 50 states (here's a map). That's why they are called "regional" agencies. For example, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges handles the six New England states; the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools handles five mid-Atlantic states plus DC, etc.

They don't overlap in terms of state coverage -- there is only one RA agency per state. So together, the 6 RA agencies handle a total of 50 states -- no more, no less.

Note also that the RA agencies are private non-profit associations -- they aren't government agencies. So there is no straightforward political mechanism for forcing them to merge.