State Authorization

Some new U.S. Department of Education regulations went into effect on July 1, 2011 and one piece of the new regs related to authorization for each state within which an institution offers distance education, has a number of institutions in Colorado (namely the Colorado Community College System) working hard to figure out how to proceed. Section 600.9 states:
(c) If an institution is offering postsecondary education through distance or correspondence education to students in a State in which it is not physically located or in which it is otherwise subject to State jurisdiction as determined by the State, the institution must meet any State requirements for it to be legally offering postsecondary distance or correspondence education in that State. An institution must be able to document to the Secretary the State's approval upon request.


When we first became aware of this new regulation (sadly, after the July 1 implementation date had already passed), I immediately had questions and four months later, I still have those same questions and more.

The process to receive authorization to offer distance education varies wildly from state to state. Some states have little or no authorization process, and others have very expensive and / or complicated processes. Some will allow approval for an entire college / university system (like CCCS) and others require all approvals to be done individually by each institution. Given the diversity of requirements and magnitude of the change, WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) has established a resource page to assist institution administrators as they navigate this new regulation.

I was recently in a meeting to discuss how we were going to proceed. When it came to the discussion about who was going to be the point person on our campus to coordinate, I mentally checked out a bit because I thought, “that is waaaay above my pay grade”…especially since there were two Deans and a Vice President of Instruction around the table that I thought might be some of the logical choices. I quickly regained my focus on the meeting when the VPI said that she and our President had a discussion and wanted me to be the primary contact. My boss and I were both fairly surprised, but when a request comes from the President…I take it. So, starting next week, I am going to immerse myself in the world of State Authorization requirements and get a much better handle on it than I currently have, because right now…I’m moderately confused.

It would be fairly easy to pose questions about the actual regulation and what it means, and I certainly have those questions, but since the meeting on our campus a couple of weeks ago, my primary questions (listed below) have focused around how we will actually implement this on our campus, as there are likely some states from which we do not seek authorization.

• Will this issue be addressed at the student level or the course level?





• Student level leads me to wonder: Which student address will be used (Local or Permanent) to determine whether or not they reside in an unapproved state? How we would prevent someone from applying whose intention is to complete courses at a distance, versus letting students apply whose intention is to relocate here to complete courses. How would we identify those students who move from an approved state to an unapproved state?





• Course level leads me to wonder: Could Banner modifications be made to prohibit enrollment in online courses by students with addresses in unapproved states? How will hybrid courses be viewed? Are they seen as online and therefore would not be able to be offered to students living in unapproved states? Or, since they have a component where the students need to be physically present in Colorado to receive instruction, would it not be seen as an online course and therefore OK?
  
  



• Some states currently on a list of those we may not seek authorization from are WUE states; have we thought of reaching out to the those WUE states and asking if they would modify their requirements for authorization in their state for other WUE state institutions?




• Regarding financial aid, is this being considered at the student or course level? Student level – will we reject FAFSA’s received from students with addresses in certain states?Course level – will F/A not award for online courses for students with addresses in certain states?
  
  So…my fellow classmates, have any of you been having discussions at your institutions about this regulation and how you’ll handle it at your institution?