Lumina Foundation: working to reduce and standardize regulations: More on Obama’s Race to the Top for higher ed
According to InsideHighered, online, from April 6, 2013:
“The Lumina Foundation is putting $2.3 million behind a growing effort to reduce the regulatory burden on institutions that offer online courses to students across state lines, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education” (http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/08/06/lumina-backs-voluntary-state-network-distance-ed-regs).
Four regional commissions, including WICHE, and anumber of other higher education officials wantdistance ed programs to be regulated by the state where they are based instead of by every state where they operate in. This is all being touted as overcoming nasty state regulations that are non-aligned but it is really the concentration of regulations within the federal government.
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The state agreement being touted would do away with cross-state regulations and substitute the Lumina greased “no borders policy”, a sort of national commerce clause for regulating, or rather assuring, on-line learning and online earning.
According to PR WEB, online:
“Most individual state regulations governing higher education institutions were created years ago to address in-state residential-based campuses. There can be considerable variation in the design and application of these regulations among the states and many jurisdictions are just now catching up with the growth of online and distance learning programs that can have a multi-state presence” (http://www.prweb.com/releases/LuminaFoundation/PresidentsForum/prweb9824120.htm).
Standardizing regulations across state lines fits well into the Lumina Foundation’s efforts to standardized student learning outcomes and