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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | February 2, 2015 11:06 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Patrick J. Harkins |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Pennsylvania Distance Education Reciprocity Act |
| In the near future, we are planning to co-introduce legislation to provide the Department of Education with the authority to enter into an interstate reciprocity agreement for the provision of postsecondary distance education to students in other states. As you may know, a state authority reciprocity agreement (SARA) is a voluntary agreement that establishes reciprocity between willing states for approval of postsecondary education services delivered by distance education beyond state boundaries. In October 2010, the United States Department of Education (USDE) issued regulations to address program integrity and student financial aid issues in higher education. Among those regulations was one dealing with state authorization of distance education providers. Although this portion of the regulations was struck down in federal court, the issuance of the proposed regulation brought attention to the broad range of state laws dealing with out-of-state providers of distance education. Prior to issuance of the federal regulation, state enforcement of these laws was spotty and many institutions were not aware of their existence. With the issue having been raised at the federal level through the now-defunct regulation, this situation has changed. Many institutions have been overwhelmed with the manpower and monetary costs of becoming authorized in many states – especially in the six to eight states with particularly onerous requirements. Consequently, there has been a lot of attention given to efforts to develop interstate reciprocity agreements relating to distance education. A SARA proposal was developed by a national council (NC-SARA). It was determined that the details of the reciprocity agreement would be administered by regional interstate compacts. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York are the only three states that do not belong to any regional compact. We believe that joining a regional interstate compact is in the best interest of our colleges and universities that wish to serve out-of-state students through distance education. The key to SARA is that each state will certify the quality of distance education courses offered by its own institutions, thereby avoiding the need of the other SARA states to approve them. In order to become members of a compact, Pennsylvania must pass authorizing legislation. Please join us in co-sponsoring this important legislation to better serve our students, this Commonwealth, and our institutions of higher education. |
Introduced as HB831