The Department of Education wants to collect more information about distance education courses and the students enrolled in them as part of a broader effort to step up oversight of online programs.
The ministry’s proposal would require universities to require attendance for distance education classes, including those offered online or by correspondence. Educational institutions would also have to provide more information to the authorities about enrollment for those classes. Additionally, the ministry is proposing to eliminate all asynchronous options for students in online clock-hour programs. These programs are typically workforce training programs that lead to certification.
The proposed changes have raised concerns among some higher education groups that they could stifle innovation, unfairly target online classes and limit access for students who could benefit from the flexibility that online education offers. Education departments and advocacy groups say the new regulations are needed to ensure oversight of online education, which has increased during and after the pandemic, and to track the outcomes of students who participate in those programs. In the 2022-23 school year, about 53% of U.S. students took at least one online course.
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Edward Conroy, senior policy manager at the left-leaning think tank New America, said additional data will shed light on whether the programs are effective and for which students.
“Schools should be asking for this information, because if it proves not to be effective, they need to find ways to improve it,” he said. “I don’t think online education is going to go away, so if it’s going to be a part of our lives, we need to make it a good one.”
The proposal is part of a series of proposed regulations that also include provisions to open up federal college preparatory programs to undocumented students. The proposed regulations were published in the Federal Register last week and are open for public comment until August 23. If finalized and published by November 1, they would go into effect by July 1 of next year.
The bill and other regulatory changes are still under review, but the Biden administration aims to better protect students, give them more control over how they spend their scholarship money and increase oversight over colleges. Critics say the changes reflect the Education Department’s growing skepticism about the quality of online education and whether such programs benefit students.
Jordan DiMaggio, vice president of policy and digital strategy for the online and professional education association UPCEA, said the department’s goals are laudable, but this proposal and other actions raise questions about the department’s motives.
“I wonder if the Department of Education is truly focused on protecting student outcomes and taxpayer dollars,” he said, “or is it revealing outdated prejudices against online education born out of skepticism and distrust of the entire sector?”
He added that the Department of Education’s justification for some of the changes appears to be rooted in an assumption that online education is bad, referencing data from the early days of the pandemic when universities quickly switched to distance learning.
“It’s like using last month’s weather forecast to decide what to wear today,” he said. “We’re facing the worst of it at a time when educational institutions had no idea how to teach online… We’re in a very different situation now.”
What the government department wants to change
The department says it just wants to ensure that students get what they pay for in distance education programs. According to the proposed regulations, the various changes will allow the department to “better measure and account for student outcomes, improve oversight of distance education, and ensure that students are receiving an effective education.” One major change is that universities will have to create virtual locations to house all programs offered fully online or by correspondence, which will require approval from accrediting bodies and state authorities.
In 2022-23, more than 3,700 higher education institutions offered at least one distance education course. However, current federal reporting requirements do not distinguish between programs offered on campus and those offered online or in a hybrid format. Also, the Department does not have visibility into how much federal financial aid is specifically being used for distance education programs. To address this information gap, the Department is proposing new reporting requirements related to distance education enrollment along with virtual locations.
The reporting requirements will require universities to detail whether students taking distance education courses are fully online or hybrid, although specific details have yet to be finalized.
Second, all distance education courses, except dissertation courses, would be required to keep attendance records as part of the proposal to more accurately determine when a student has withdrawn from a program. The withdrawal date is important in calculating the amount of federal financial aid that an institution or student owes back to the federal government. The department says the proposal would allow students to better repay balances owed after withdrawal and would also simplify the calculations for institutions.
DiMaggio and others said implementing attendance requirements would be complicated and would likely require more systemic changes to institutions’ learning management systems and other software. They said the Education Department has underestimated the difficulty institutions would face in complying.
The Ministry expects that institutions will spend approximately 10 hours initially implementing the attendance requirement, followed by approximately 10 minutes per day to collect the information needed for recording. The Ministry estimates that approximately half of the institutions offering distance education courses already take attendance.
“Because school systems can often identify when students have turned in assignments or interacted with faculty and students during lectures or course discussions, institutions can often easily determine when a student has stopped attending,” the officials wrote.
DiMaggio said he doesn’t think that’s the case, “and a number of institutions have suggested that’s not the case,” he added.
Another significant change in the package is reversing a 2020 rule change that allowed asynchronous learning activities, such as watching pre-recorded videos, to count toward the required number of hours for distance education courses. Hourly programs tend to be shorter in duration and career-focused, requiring hands-on instruction to prepare students for employment in a particular field.
The 2020 changes “put students and taxpayers at risk,” the agency said in the proposed rule, citing oversight and compliance activities. “Asynchronous learning in part-time programs often consists of playing videos, reading assignments, and scrolling pages,” resulting in a “substandard education” for students, the agency added. Additionally, students complain to the agency that the lack of in-person interaction with instructors “hinders their ability to learn the skills they need to pass certification exams or get a job in their field.”
The department believes only a “very small” number of institutions will be affected, but it does not have data on how many programs have an asynchronous component.
New America’s Conroy said the changes to distance learning regulations reflect “a major shift in how people are accessing higher education,” including more students taking a combination of in-person and online classes.
“If that’s going to be a big part of how higher education is delivered, we need to know what’s going on there and make sure that we’re able to provide similar or the same protections to students who are enrolled online-only that we provide to students who are enrolled in-person if something goes wrong,” he said.
“We need a better solution”
Critics of the proposal say the Ministry of Education is making unnecessary and blanket decisions in response to some bad practices, especially when it comes to changes to asynchronous learning activities in part-time programs.
“They’re right that there are some really bad practices out there, but they also say that some institutions have spent a lot of money, time and effort making sure they’re doing it right,” said Russell Pullin, executive director of the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education Collaborative for Educational Technology (WCET). “We need a better solution than this.”
WCET’s Paulin and other researchers say the proposed changes will make it more complicated for institutions to offer distance education, rather than simplifying the process. For example, complying with attendance requirements is more complicated than simply “counting attendance.” With distance education, it matters not just whether a student attended or logged in, but whether they participated in class. This must be determined by faculty who review student files, and measures of academic engagement may vary depending on the structure of classes, they said.
“There are a lot of little processes built into this that are far from simplified,” Pullin said.
Eliminating asynchronous instruction in part-time programs could hinder students who are considered non-traditional, such as parents, said Emanuel Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education.
“Because they can study at their own pace,” he said, “They’re working two or three jobs. They’re trying to support their families in any way they can, and they can’t afford to make time every week to study in a classroom with their peers. By using student aid funds, you’re limiting these students’ access to higher education. This can have a disproportionate impact on low-income students.”
Guillory added that other changes, from attendance requirements to virtual venues, will likely mean that some already-strapped colleges and universities will have to devote even more resources and manpower to complying.
“This will only add more stress and burden to the men and women staff on campus who are working diligently to create quality academic programs and ensure teaching and learning on campus, and it will only increase the red tape they have to deal with,” he said.