The state authorization fiasco in California is the sort of unintended consequence that can occur when policy makers impose rules only on one sector of higher education, writes Steve Gunderson.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently put as many as 80,000 students who live in California but attend an out-of-state public or nonprofit postsecondary school in peril. But it wasn’t her fault! A federal court earlier this year ordered the U.S. Department of Education to enforce an Obama-era law on state authorization for online programs despite the Trump administration’s repeatedly stated concerns with the rule’s unintended consequences and attempts to pause implementation of the rule until next year to rewrite it.
The department’s state authorization rule, which became effective in May, requires a state to have a complaint process in place for their residents who are enrolled in online programs that originate from a postsecondary institution in another state. Alternatively, a state could participate in a reciprocity agreement that would satisfy this requirement, though California has decided to be the single holdout state to participate in such a compact.