An enduring tension in federal higher education policy making is the balancing act between protecting students and taxpayers on the one hand and allowing for innovative instruction and business models on the other. New administrations typically emphasize one over the other, swinging the policy pendulum between those two goals.
The regulatory overhaul proposed this week by the Trump administration has predictably swung the emphasis back toward innovation, leaving consumer advocates frustrated over the implications for student protections.
The department wants to re-examine not only the role of accreditors in overseeing colleges and universities but a number of related rules as well, like the standard definition of an academic credit hour, faculty interaction requirements for online programs and state authorization rules.
Many online higher ed providers had long hoped for more flexibility in the federal rules governing accreditors and the programs they oversee, a key objective of the latest round of rule making, which the agency formally announced in a federal notice Monday. Critics, though -- even some who support the notion of greater innovation in higher education, a purported aim of the Trump administration's approach -- worry about a hollowing out of baseline student protections.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/31/online-providers-consumer-advocates-odds-over-education-department-regulatory