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Higher Ed in the News

Online education and the struggle with state regulations

October 28, 2009

Distance-learning technology has changed since its early days, but the regulatory maze is getting worse, some argue.

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.

A report released last week by the Presidents’ Forum, a collaboration of national, adult-serving institutions that embrace online education, suggests several strategies to resolve the problem: 

• an agreed-upon body of required student and institutional data
• a template of state standards
• avoiding redundancy by accepting the judgments of other state

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Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.