Department of Education wants more data on distance learning

The Education Department wants to collect much more information about distance learning courses and the students enrolled in them, as part of a broader effort to increase oversight of online programs.

The department’s proposal would require colleges and universities to offer distance learning, which includes classes offered online or by correspondence. Institutions would also have to provide the agency with more information about enrolling in those classes. The department also proposes ending all asynchronous options for students in online hour programs, which are typically job-training programs that lead to a certificate.

The proposed changes have raised concerns among some higher education groups that they could stifle innovation, unfairly target online classes and limit access for students who could benefit from the flexibility online education provides. The department and advocates say the new rules are needed to provide oversight of online learning — which has surged during and after the pandemic — and track student outcomes in those programs. About 53 percent of U.S. college students enrolled in at least one online course in the 2022-23 academic year.

The most popular

Edward Conroy, senior policy director at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said additional data will shed light on whether the programs are effective and for which students.

“Schools should want this information because if it’s not working, we need to find ways to make it better,” he said. “I don’t think online education is going away, so if it’s going to be a part of our lives, we need to make it good.”

The proposals are part of a package of draft regulations that also include provisions to open a federal college preparatory program to undocumented students. The regulations were posted on Federal Register last week and are open for public comment until Aug. 23. If finalized and published by Nov. 1, they would take effect July 1 of next year.

With the package and other regulatory changes still pending, the Biden administration aims to better protect students and give them more control over how their financial aid is used, while also increasing oversight of colleges. Critics say the changes reflect growing skepticism from the Education Department about the quality of online education and whether these programs are paying off for students.

Jordan DiMaggio, vice president of digital policy and strategy at UPCEA, an association that focuses on online and career education, said the department’s goals are laudable, but this proposal and others raise questions about the agency’s motivations.

“The questions are whether the department is truly focused on protecting student outcomes and taxpayer dollars,” he said. “Or are they revealing outdated prejudices against online education that are framed by suspicion and distrust of the field as a whole?”

He added that the rationale for some of the changes appears to be an assumption that online education is bad, based on data from the early days of the pandemic when universities quickly transitioned to remote learning.

“It’s a bit like using last month’s weather forecast to plan what to wear today,” he said. “We’re looking at the worst of the worst at a time when institutions had no idea how to teach online… We’re in a completely different place.”

What the Department wants to change

The department says it’s simply trying to make sure students get what they pay for in distance learning programs. Various changes would help the department “better measure and account for student outcomes, improve oversight of distance learning, and ensure that students are receiving an effective education,” according to the proposed regulations. One big change: Colleges would have to create a virtual location where they can house all of their programs offered entirely online or through correspondence, which would have to be approved by accreditors and state officials.

In 2022-23, just over 3,700 higher education institutions offered at least one distance-learning course. However, current federal reporting requirements do not distinguish between in-person programs and those offered online or in a hybrid format. The department also cannot say how much federal financial aid is specifically allocated to distance-learning programs. To address this information gap, the department is proposing new reporting requirements for distance-learning enrollments with a virtual location.

The reporting requirements would require institutions to report whether students enrolled in a distance learning course are learning exclusively online or in a hybrid mode; specific details have not yet been determined.

After that, all distance education courses will be required to include attendance as part of the application to more accurately determine when a student withdraws from the program, with the exception of dissertation research courses. The withdrawal date is key to calculating how much federal financial aid an institution or student should repay to the government. The department says the application will help students better repay any outstanding balance after withdrawal, while simplifying the calculation for institutions.

DiMaggio and others said implementing the attendance requirement would be complicated and likely require more systematic changes to institutions’ learning management systems and other software. The department is underestimating the challenges institutions will face in meeting the requirement, they said.

The department expects an institution to spend about 10 hours initially implementing the attendance requirement, and then about 10 minutes per day collecting the necessary information for its records. The agency estimates that about half of institutions offering distance learning courses already collect attendance.

“Institutions can often easily determine when students stop attending classes because school systems can often identify when students are submitting assignments or interacting with instructors and other students during lectures and class discussions,” officials wrote.

DiMaggio said he doesn’t think that’s the case. “And many of our institutions have indicated to us that’s not the case,” he added.

Another key change in the package reverses a 2020 rule change that allowed asynchronous learning activities — such as watching a prerecorded video — to count toward the required number of clock hours in a distance education course. Clock-hour programs are typically shorter and career-oriented, requiring hands-on learning to prepare students for employment in a specific field.

The 2020 change “puts students and taxpayers at risk,” officials wrote in the proposed regulation, citing its oversight and compliance efforts. Officials added that “asynchronous learning in hourly programs often consisted of playing videos, reading assignments, or scrolling through pages,” resulting in a “subpar education” for students. Additionally, students told the agency that the lack of direct engagement from instructors “made it difficult for them to acquire the skills necessary to pass certification exams or obtain jobs in their field.”

The department believes that “very few institutions” would be affected by this situation, but does not have data on the number of programs that contain asynchronous elements.

New America’s Conroy said the changes to distance learning regulations reflect “a huge shift in how people are going through higher education,” including more students enrolling in blended classes, both in-person and online.

“If this is going to be a significant part of how higher education is delivered, we need to know what’s happening with that, and we need to be able to provide students who enroll exclusively online with similar or the same safeguards in case of problems as we provide for students who enroll in-person,” he said.

“There has to be a better solution”

Critics of the proposal say the department is making unnecessary and far-reaching decisions in response to some bad practices, especially when it comes to changes to asynchronous teaching within hourly programs.

“They’re right that there are really bad practices, but they said there are institutions that have spent a lot of money and a lot of time and effort to make sure they’re right,” said Russell Poulin, executive director of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Cooperative for Educational Technologies, or WCET. “There needs to be a better solution than this.”

Poulin and others at WCET say the proposed changes will make it harder for institutions to offer distance education, rather than simplifying processes. For example, enforcing attendance requirements is more complicated than simply “counting noses.” In distance learning, it’s not just a matter of whether a student showed up or logged in, but also whether they participated in class. That would have to be determined by a faculty member reviewing a student’s file, they said, and measures of academic engagement can vary depending on how a class is organized.

“There are a lot of little processes involved in this process that are not at all simplified,” Poulin said.

Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, said eliminating asynchronous learning in full-time programs could make learning more difficult for students who are considered nontraditional, such as parents.

“Because they can do it at their own pace,” he said. “They’re working two or three jobs. They’re trying to support their families however they can, and they don’t have the luxury of having a set aside time every week to sit in a classroom with their peers and learn. What you’re doing is limiting the ability of these students to access post-graduate education by using student aid funds, and that can have a huge impact on low-income students.”

Guillory added that other changes, from attendance requirements to virtual classes, will likely mean that colleges — some of which are already struggling with funding shortfalls — will have to devote more resources and manpower to adapt.

“It just adds more stress and burden to the men and women on our campuses who are really trying their best to create high-quality academic programs, to provide teaching and learning on campus, and that just means more bureaucracy for them to deal with,” he said.