Consumer advocates, legal aid organizations and labor unions are urging New York State’s education commissioner not to sign an interstate agreement that they say would expose students to harm at the hands of online colleges and universities.
The agreement, the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement, creates a shared system for regulating online higher education programs. Public and private, nonprofit colleges and universities in New York have been aggressive in lobbying for the commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, to sign the agreement, saying it is critical to their ability to compete in the rapidly expanding online-education market.
But the groups calling on Ms. Elia not to sign the agreement, which include the New York Public Interest Research Group, the Institute for College Access and Success, the Consumers Union, and the National Consumer Law Center, say it would put poor students at serious risk from for-profit schools, which have played an outsize role in the increase in both student debt and student loan defaults over the past 15 years, according to a recent analysis.
Read more at The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/nyregion/critics-assail-potential-new-york-move-on-regulating-online-colleges.html