News & Publications

The Department of Education issued guidance yesterday that ED's regulations prohibit California residents enrolled in distance education programs at out-of-state public and nonprofit institutions from receiving federal student aid funds. In 2016, the department under the Obama administration issued state authorization regulations that require, as a matter of institutional eligibility to participate in the Title IV programs, institutions offering distance education courses to students in any state in which they are not physically located demonstrate that each state has [...]

Amid widespread concern about student debt and calls for higher education institutions to put more "skin in the game," some have looked to income share agreements (ISAs) as part of the solution. In general, under an ISA, a school or investor provides a student funds for education today in exchange for a percentage of the student's income tomorrow. Incentives are theoretically aligned: the better job a student gets, the more money an institution earns. Like [...]

In another important development, the Neg Reg negotiators reached consensus on revisions to the department's long-delayed state authorization rules. While the distance learning community has been keenly aware of these discussions, the consensus rule, which draws heavily on provisions in the department's 2016 state authorization rule, proposes a significant change in disclosure obligations applicable to all programs offered by Title IV-participating institutions, whether online or classroom-based. The Neg Reg Committee retained a version of the student and prospective student professional licensure disclosures [...]