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Education Dive
Ed Dept extends online education flexibilities to year end
Natalie Schwartz
May 18, 2020
Dive Brief:
As colleges weigh whether to open campuses for the fall term, the U.S.
Department of Education issued guidance Friday that extended temporary
flexibilities around distance education through the end of the year.
Colleges can continue to use distance education until Dec. 31, even if
they don't have accreditor approval to do so. Accrediting agencies may
also continue conducting virtual site visits.
Additionally, the guidance clarifies eligibility for small business
relief loans and how to handle Title IV returns for students who
withdraw.
Dive Insight:
The guidance allows colleges that must continue offering online classes
to stay eligible for federal funding without going through the typical
review process required to launch online and distance education
programs. Without the extension, schools may have been forced to reopen
their campuses before they were ready, lawmakers pointed out in a
letter to the department last week.
The document is largely similar to guidance the department issued in
March, laying out expectations for colleges and their accreditors about
the degree of flexibility they had in moving courses online, observers
note.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups have questioned whether the department is
providing enough oversight of how colleges are transitioning to remote
instruction, even if temporarily. Like previous guidance, the new
document doesn't require colleges to alert the Ed Department about the
changes they're making to their instruction.
But Clare McCann, deputy director for federal higher education policy
at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said colleges should be
required to document such changes along with whether they plan to
continue teaching programs online after the crisis subsides.
They should also say how they're meeting the requirement that distance
education programs must provide students "regular and substantive
interaction" with their instructors, she added. In guidance released in
early March, the department gave instructors wide latitude in meeting
these requirements, saying they could email, teleconference or chat
online with students to do so.
"I was hoping that if the department were going to extend the guidance
any further, it would at least have some bare minimum reporting
requirements," said Antoinette Flores, director for postsecondary
education at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think
tank. "I worry that the longer this goes on … that there's not really
enough attention being paid to quality."
Some accreditors have had similarly lax requirements. The New England
Commission of Higher Education, for instance, said on its website that
it would "appreciate hearing" from its institutions about changes to
their instructional delivery and academic calendar. Others — such as
the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges and the
Higher Learning Commission — are asking their schools to notify them of
changes.
The guidance also provides some clarity around eligibility for the
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a federal relief program established
to help small businesses, including private colleges, continue to pay
workers through the crisis. The loans can be forgiven if recipients
meet certain requirements, such as keeping their full staff on the
payroll for eight weeks. Higher ed groups had previously asked Congress
for more flexibility for colleges to receive these funds.
Too much debt can hurt a school's composite score, a measure the Ed
Department uses to assess an institution's financial health. In its
latest guidance, the department said it will exclude from a college's
count of liabilities the amount of PPP loans the school expects will be
forgiven and instead raise its equity or assets by that amount.
Generally, if a school's score drops below a certain level, its access
to federal financial aid is restricted.
The department also noted that institutions should not count work-study
students toward their employee counts and payroll costs for the program.
Colleges also don't have to return Title IV funds if students withdraw
because of a coronavirus-related issue, according to the new guidance.
Schools that have switched from in-person to virtual instruction are
allowed to consider all withdrawals of students enrolled in
campus-based instruction to be a result of the COVID-19 national
emergency.
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