stanman wrote:
Apparently new higher education standards passed back in 2010 just went into effect, which place new restrictions on online education programs. Under these new standards online colleges are now required to meet state education certifications in every state they offer services in. As each state has their own standards that creates a very large burden on the school in keeping track of the requirements and developing programs that are suitable to meet such a broad spectrum.

As a result several online schools have begun restricting student access to only those that live in the state that their physical facility is located within. This runs pretty contrary to the purpose of online education and IMO is a pretty big restriction to a person's ability to pursue a higher education.

The intent of the bill was to provide consumer protection so that if a college failed to uphold it's degree promises to students that they would have an official channel to lodge complaints with their state's DA, but in practice it will only end up denying a lot of students access to schooling as many online students live outside of the state. What's the most insulting aspect of this is that people who reside outside the US are still free to attend the online universities that out of state students are now being barred from. It's looking to be a situation where a bill that was passed with with good intentions is going to end to end up burning a lot of students and placing a very undue burden on colleges that would otherwise be offering affordable options for education.


Despite maintaining a 4.0 GPA I've been kicked out of the online program I was previously attending because I'm not a resident of CA where my school is located. The program I was in was excellent and most of all it was affordable as it was about half of what on-campus classes would run with the major savings being that I could avoid a hefty amount of student loan debt by not having to deal with cost of living expenses.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The thing that I also find somewhat interesting... Back when I was researching schools to attend online (this was when I was stationed in Germany), I noticed many that exclaimed "We're accredited by X, Y, Z organizations!" Where X, Y and Z were nationally recognized "industry experts" for fields like engineering, history and psychology. And yet, it would seem that accreditation isn't good enough.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The thing that I also find somewhat interesting... Back when I was researching schools to attend online (this was when I was stationed in Germany), I noticed many that exclaimed "We're accredited by X, Y, Z organizations!" Where X, Y and Z were nationally recognized "industry experts" for fields like engineering, history and psychology. And yet, it would seem that accreditation isn't good enough.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Yeah, I think that this bill was aimed specifically at University of Phoenix and Devry University, or any of the other "profit mill" type schools.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Unfortunately, many of the really good schools out there will be hurt, and possibly shut down over this.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The thing that I also find somewhat interesting... Back when I was researching schools to attend online (this was when I was stationed in Germany), I noticed many that exclaimed "We're accredited by X, Y, Z organizations!" Where X, Y and Z were nationally recognized "industry experts" for fields like engineering, history and psychology. And yet, it would seem that accreditation isn't good enough.

 LordofHats wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stanman wrote:
The problem is that the new regulations shut down perfectly legit schools from operating,

I question the legitimacy of any program that was unable to get itself brought up to par and certified in the five years since this law passed.

I question the legitimacy of any program that was unable to get itself brought up to par and certified in the five years since this law passed.

 stanman wrote:
Apparently new higher education standards passed back in 2010 just went into effect, which place new restrictions on online education programs. Under these new standards online colleges are now required to meet state education certifications in every state they offer services in.

 stanman wrote:
the only ones being helped are the ones profiting off tuition costs and student loans.

 stanman wrote:
I need to dig it out of my emails which I can't do atm, but it was a 2010 bill that had been pushed back several times and it was new regulations from US Department of Education USDOE pertaining to higher education institutions (secondary education standards). I'm assuming that USDOE is regulated by federal laws and not state.

 jasper76 wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The thing that I also find somewhat interesting... Back when I was researching schools to attend online (this was when I was stationed in Germany), I noticed many that exclaimed "We're accredited by X, Y, Z organizations!" Where X, Y and Z were nationally recognized "industry experts" for fields like engineering, history and psychology. And yet, it would seem that accreditation isn't good enough.

When you say "And yet, it would seem that accreditation isn't good enough.", I'm not sure what you mean by that.

BeAfraid wrote:

I have not seen too terribly many online Universities that offered anywhere near what they promise, or that are accepted as credit to Real universities.

 stanman wrote:
The problem is that the new regulations shut down perfectly legit schools from operating, which forces students to take on a lot more debt and it's a pretty severe limitation being imposed on personal liberties. (Big government ftw!)

If I choose to finish up my courses on campus my online classes will apply towards it but it radically alters the total cost of the program and I'll need to figure out where I'm going to come up with an extra $45-50k which is a rather significant hurdle that was not part of the planned path. A good portion of the students do 2 years of online and 1 year on campus, online runs $16-18k for their full time courses on campus is $34k. They are located in downtown hollywood and don't have student housing so cost of living is an absolute minimum of $30k a year with $40k being a much more realistic estimate.

The worst part about this is that there was no advance warning about the shift in the program, had I known that it'd take place it would have likely prompted me not to attend at all as relocation to CA for a full 2-3 years is not an option as I'm tied down with a job a family (and not a kid fresh out of HS) So my two options at this point are either flushing a year and half of work and tuition down the drain, or take on another years salary in debt.

Between student loan interest rates being allowed to double and now killing off a lot of online schools they are just further entrenching students into debt they won't be able to escape for decades. The cost of obtaining a degree is rising while their value for securing employment is actually shrinking. Most people I know don't have a degree related to what they actually do for a job all employers seem to care about is that you have that slip of paper saying you put in your time but don't care what the focus was.

I think that a national certification program isn't a bad idea for state funded schools, but when it comes to private schools, trade or art schools that are focused on a specific industry it's hard to apply those same standards. Going to a trade or art school you don't really have a practical use for humanities, history, or English courses like a general college degree requires. While that's intended to promote a well round student via exposure to a variety of subjects it's largely a waste of time and resources for somebody focused on obtaining a specific trade skill that a lot of private schools support.

 stanman wrote:


The worst part about this is that there was no advance warning about the shift in the program, had I known that it'd take place it would have likely prompted me not to attend at all as relocation to CA for a full 2-3 years is not an option as I'm tied down with a job a family (and not a kid fresh out of HS) So my two options at this point are either flushing a year and half of work and tuition down the drain, or take on another years salary in debt.