The Nuance Behind the Report Headlines
Phil Hill
December 11, 2024
Dept of Ed regulatory update plus the nuance from WICHE’s report on demographic trends that doesn’t get covered
Well, they’re doing it. The US Department of Education (ED) is moving forward with its proposed regulations on Distance Education (adding a virtual location data collection, disallowing asynchronous offerings for clock-hour programs), Return to Title IV (attendance taking for online courses, automatic withdrawals for 14-day periods of student inactivity), and changes to the TRIO program. And all of this despite the very high likelihood that these new rules will be struck down by the incoming Trump administration through the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Some caveats to note:
We don’t know what changes that ED has made to these proposed regulations based on the public comment period, but given its history the past few years, I wouldn’t expect too much change.
See the first bold highlight above – this is not to remove financial aid for ALL asynchronous online offerings; it’s more on a subset of vocationally-oriented programs.
This set of rules does NOT include changes to state authorization or inclusive access.
