Lawmakers Consider How Best to Provide More Aid to Distance-Education Students
By Karla Haworth

As Congress begins its work on extending the Higher Education Act, lawmakers are for the first time wrestling seriously with the subject of distance education.

Early in the process, lawmakers, lobbyists, and advocacy groups agree on the importance of removing the barriers to distance education that were created six years ago, when the law was last reauthorized.

Two issues are paramount in the portion of the legislation that deals with distance education: which students should be eligible for federal financial aid, and how the quality of the programs in which those students are enrolled should be monitored.

So far, the Clinton Administration has proposed, and the House of Representatives is expected to approve, easing a provision in the current law that prevents many students from enrolling in distance-education courses because their institutions are ineligible to receive federal aid.

The proposal, however, would curtail some of the safeguards that prevent students at institutions of questionable academic rigor from receiving financial aid. Some observers fear that changing the law would open the floodgate for unscrupulous institutions that run bogus courses to capitalize on financial-aid programs.

To deal with that problem, the Administration would direct regional accrediting agencies to develop specific standards for distance-learning programs, distinct from their requirements for on-campus programs. Although Education Department officials have said they do not want to dictate what those standards should be, accreditors fear that the proposals would give them more administrative work and less autonomy from the government. They also worry that such a change would make way for significant new regulation of the accrediting agencies by the department.

"They're basically deputizing accrediting agencies to be federal agencies," said Ralph A. Wolff, head of the commission that oversees four-year colleges for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. "New legislation shouldn't overregulate accrediting agencies that aren't government agencies."

Other critics of the plan say they doubt whether accrediting agencies would be able to handle the added responsibility.

"Accreditors work in cycles of years, and we're talking about using technology that's moving ahead," said Thomas R. Wolanin, a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, in Washington, who was staff director of the House's postsecondary-education subcommittee for the past three extensions of the Higher Education Act. "By the time they draft the standards and enforce them, those who are unscrupulous will have already had plenty of time to bilk the federal government out of money."

During the most recent extension of the Higher Education Act, in 1992, a scandal involving several correspondence schools was fresh on lawmakers' minds. A report had found that the schools had failed to meet the course-length requirements the government sets for colleges to receive aid. The schools, however, had failed to repay the government for aid they received for courses that did not meet those requirements.

To prevent such institutions from abusing the system, Congress amended the law with what has become known as the "50-per-cent rule." It prohibited institutions that offered more than 50 per cent of their courses through distance education from receiving funds under Title IV of the law, which governs federal student-aid programs. It also barred students at institutions at which more than 50 per cent of the students were enrolled in distance-education programs from getting aid.

That change, which was aimed mainly at correspondence schools, now poses problems for "virtual" universities and other participants in the booming distance-learning movement.

Western Governors University, for example, soon plans to offer courses through 21 colleges and corporations in 16 states and Guam. Lawmakers and educators alike have promoted the university as a model of how to use technology to expand educational opportunities. But its backers -- and many other educators -- have lobbied hard for the elimination of the 50-per-cent rule, which they say would deny a college education to many students who are unable to enroll in traditional, campus-based programs.

Virtually everyone agrees that changing the law to give distance-education students the same benefits as students on the campuses is a high priority. The Clinton Administration has proposed allowing students enrolled in distance-education courses to receive annual cost-of-living allowances, under federal aid programs, similar to those of students who live off campus and are enrolled in college at least half-time.

The Administration also has proposed eliminating the 50-per-cent rule, though only for degree-granting institutions.

Even with that limitation, critics say, bogus institutions still could slip through the system, because an institution need offer only one degree to be considered "degree granting." The Education Department's own Inspector General had urged department officials to limit any changes in the 50-per-cent rule to distance-learning programs at two-year and four-year colleges that offer accredited associate, bachelor's, or graduate degrees.

Because accrediting agencies monitor many other aspects of colleges, and play a central role in assessing which institutions should receive federal aid, it makes sense for them to evaluate distance-education programs as well, Education Department officials argue.

The Administration wants to require accreditors to develop standards for distance learning. Those standards should examine how institutions select distance-education students and monitor their progress, said Maureen McLaughlin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for policy, planning, and evaluation. The agencies also should evaluate support services for distance-education students and the institution's standards for measuring what a student has learned, the department recommended.

Ms. McLaughlin insists that the department is cooperating with accreditors in the best interest of students, and that it is not trying to micromanage accrediting agencies. "We're not trying to say what the standards should be. However, we want to make sure that when it's done, it's done well."

Some accreditors and other observers, however, are uncomfortable with the prospect of such provisions' being written into federal law. "What we don't like is the department's wanting to tell the accrediting agencies what to do," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice-president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education. "The accrediting agencies are perfectly capable of addressing those standards. We don't want the department regulating more than is absolutely necessary."

Some accreditors say the department's proposals would add to the administrative burden that already prevents their agencies from spending more time on the oversight of academic quality.

Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, said her group had been pushing the Education Department to ease the burdens it places on accreditors; this change, she said, would move in the opposite direction.

Dr. Eaton also is concerned that the proposals would further confuse the roles of the department and of accreditors in assessing program quality. "The department would be taking on more of the academic-quality oversight that we believe is traditionally the responsibility of voluntary accreditors," she said.

Steven Crow, who heads the college commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, believes that requiring accreditors to draft two sets of standards for issues that affect both traditional students and distance learners is problematic. What's more, he said, the department's attempt to impose standards on accreditors shows its lack of confidence in the agencies to assess the quality of colleges.

Not so, said Ms. McLaughlin, who added that the accrediting agencies are "moving along" toward evaluating distance-education programs. In fact, four accreditors in the states where Western Governors University plans to operate have formed a group called the Inter-Regional Accreditation Commission to design a set of eligibility requirements and accreditation standards solely for distance-education programs. According to accreditors, the group realizes that it must draft those standards quickly and is working to do so.

Answers won't come quickly, though, said Dr. Eaton. "I think we all need to face one thing. We're all at the beginning of dealing with this, both in financial aid and in the scrutiny of quality, and it's going to take some time to work out. It's real clear that we've got a long way to go."

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc. Posted with permission on www.schev.edu. This article may not be published, reposted, or redistributed without express permission from The Chronicle.