[Senate Hearing 107-752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-752
INTERNET EDUCATION: EXPLORING THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF WEB-BASED
EDUCATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF WEB-BASED EDUCATION
__________
SEPTEMBER 26, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
82-688 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
TOM HARKIN, Iowa BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri
PATTY MURRAY, Washington PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
JACK REED, Rhode Island SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
J. Michael Myers, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Townsend Lange McNitt, Minority Staff Director
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(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
SEPTEMBER 26, 2002
Page
Wellstone, Hon. Paul D., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Minnesota, opening statement................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Enzi, Hon. Michael B., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming,
prepared statement............................................. 4
Shank, Stephen, J.D., Chancellor, Capella University; Cornelia M.
Ashby, Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security
Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office; A. Frank Mayadas,
Ph.D., Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; and Robert
W. Mendenhall, President, Western Governors University, Salt
Lake City, UT.................................................. 5
Prepared statements of:
Mr. Shank................................................ 7
Ms. Ashby................................................ 13
Mr. Mayadas.............................................. 26
Mr. Mendenhall........................................... 32
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Response to questions from committee by GAO.................. 21
(iii)
INTERNET EDUCATION: EXPLORING THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF WEB-BASED
EDUCATION
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Paul
Wellstone, presiding.
Present: Senators Wellstone and Enzi.
Opening Statement of Senator Wellstone
Senator Wellstone. The HELP Committee will come to order. I
will put my full statement in the record, and I want to get
started.
Is this microphone on? No? I was apologizing for having to
be in and out because of a hearing in the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on Iraq in a few minutes. I then went on
and I explained that to me, education is a foundation of
opportunity, and I also frankly think, as John Dewey did, that
it is related to functioning democracy. We need citizens
involved in the work of democracy.
I think K through 12 is a silly definition of education. It
should be pre-K through 65, and many of you that are involved
with distance learning are working with a lot of the
nontraditional students who I think have become the traditional
students in that I think they have really essentially become
the majority. And so I just want to thank you for your very
fine work, and I think that the key question is going to be to
make sure that with distance learning we have the highest
quality education without onerous regulations that put you at a
disadvantage. We have to find the balance here.
Distance learning is terribly important. I speak to you as
someone who very much believes in your mission and what you do.
I just think we have to make sure that we also achieve
intellectual rigor in education. And I don't think any of you,
from looking at some of your testimony, disagree with me.
Let me make introductions. Cornelia Ashby is Director of
Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues at the U.S.
General Accounting Office. GAO does some exceptional work, and
I would like to thank you. Again, without going through a whole
introduction that would go a long time, I think that Ms.
Ashby's testimony is especially important for us because she
directs studies that involve higher education, child welfare,
child support enforcement, and adult and vocational education
issues. So I think your testimony will be extremely important.
Frank Mayadas--and I hope I have pronounced your name the
right way. I want to welcome Dr. Mayadas, who is program
director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has done just
fabulous work. It is a foundation that has made immense
contributions, and your focus on areas of online education,
globalization of industries, industry studies and career choice
in technical fields, again, I think will be of immense benefit
to us.
And then, if I could, Senator Enzi, I apologize. I have to
be in and out because of Iraq and a hearing that I have got to
go to, but I want to give a special introduction to Steve Shank
before you go to Mr. Mendenhall. He founded and is now
chancellor of Capella University, which is based in
Minneapolis. Steve began his career as an attorney with Dorsey
and Whitney. There is much to go through in terms of some of
his recognition as an outstanding CEO, but I just will say that
under Steve Shank's leadership, Capella has received
accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission of the North
Central Association of Colleges and Schools. He won the Tekne
Award, 2001 Tekne Award, which recognizes technology innovators
who have made lasting contributions to technology development.
And I especially want to thank him for stepping forward when so
many LTV workers--around 1,300 taconite workers on the range--
were laid off. Steve offered $500,000 in scholarships to the
families, and for that, as a Senator from Minnesota, I am
especially grateful to you. Welcome, Steve Shank.
[The prepared statement of Senator Wellstone follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Wellstone
I want to thank everyone for being here and I am
apologizing in advance that I will have to leave exactly at
10:30 for Iraq hearings. I have always said that education is
not just for people aged 5 through 21 but really should be
about people who are aged 0 to 65. There are very few
innovations that have done more for non-traditional learners
that internet education. Whether it is because it addresses the
problems of travel, child care, work or other schedule
concerns, on-line education has opened up higher education to
so many people who would not otherwise have had access to an
advanced degree.
I am particularly hopeful that distance learning can and
will benefit rural and economically distressed areas. I have
met so many people who live in the Iron Range of Minnesota, for
example, who have lost there jobs due to the LTV Mining Company
closing. They tell me that they want to stay in their
communities, but they also do not see any opportunities there.
They are forced to decide between leaving their homes and where
they grew up, and advancing their career. On-line education
will offer many of them a solution. I thank all of you for what
you are doing to reach traditionally underserved populations.
In particular, I want to thank Steve Shank, whose Company
offered $500,000 in scholarships to workers and their families
who were negatively impacted by the LTV closing. His offer was
very generous and I will talk more about his work in my
introduction of him.
I also am very cognizant of the importance of ensuring the
quality of distance learning programs. We need to be very
cautious about making changes to the law to be sure that
nothing is done to diminish the quality of programs supported
by Federal financial aid. We have representatives of high
quality programs here today, but there are many programs that
are not as good. It will be extremely valuable for this
Committee to hear from all of you about how we can help grow
distance learning programs, which have great potential, while
at the same time ensuring that programs are the highest
quality. Your advice will be quite useful as we approach the
Higher Education Act Reauthorization next year. Thank you again
for being here.
Senator Enzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very excited
about these hearings today, and I am glad that we are able to
do this. The issue of distance learning is extremely important,
and we have a person here that represents the Western Governors
University, Mr. Robert W. Mendenhall.
I was at a Western Interstate Commission on Higher
Education meeting in San Francisco when the Western Governors
University was announced. I was impressed to learn that it
would be a coalition of several different Western States so
that people in rural areas would be able to get a college
education and even degrees from home. Now, the Western
Interstate Commission on Higher Education, WICHE, is composed
of not only some nonuniversity people like myself, but also
most of the university presidents, and as they announced, the
biggest whisper that was going around the room is how will we
charge for out-of-State tuition?
[Laughter.]
But they have worked through all of that, and we are very
pleased today that Robert W. Mendenhall, the president and
chief executive officer of the Western Governors University,
can join us to present his unique perspective on online
learning. The Western Governors University is a unique
institution that was founded and supported by 19 Governors,
including Wyoming's own Jim Geringer, as well as 24 leading
corporations and foundations. It currently offers degrees at
the associate's, bachelor's, and master's level in business,
information technology, and in education.
I am especially impressed by the Western Governors
University Teachers College which allows paraprofessionals and
uncertified teachers to gain teaching credentials. Mr.
Mendenhall has more than 20 years' experience in the
development, marketing, and delivery of technology based on
education. Among his many accomplishments, he was previously
the director of IBM's K-12 Education Division, as well as the
founder, president, and CEO of Wicat Systems, Incorporated, a
leading provider of computer-based curriculum, instructional
management and testing and technology-based training for both
Government and industry. And I thank you, Mr. Mendenhall, for
being a part of this hearing today. This will probably be a
very basic hearing that will have some real core information
that we need to be able to cover this topic as we get into next
year's reauthorization of the Higher Education.
[The prepared statement of Senator Enzi follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Enzi
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would like to begin by thanking
Senator Kennedy and his staff for agreeing to hold this
hearing. I am pleased that we have been able to work together
to investigate the potential that distance learning holds for
our nation's students.
As some of you may know, I have a very personal interest in
the issue of distance education. I saw how effective it can be
because my wife, Diana, received her masters degree in adult
education by taking online classes through the University of
Wyoming while living here in Washington. After witnessing the
high quality of the course work, the responsiveness to
students' needs, and the technological flexibility that enabled
Diana's experience, I have become a strong advocate for
distance learning.
In an effort to make distance education more accessible to
post-secondary students, I was pleased to sponsor S. 1445, the
Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001 in the Senate. This
important legislation, which is based on the findings of the
bipartisan Web-Based Education Commission on which I served,
will accomplish the critical goal of giving more students the
opportunity to pursue post-secondary education by expanding
access to financial aid for students who choose to further
their education through distance education.
I am especially pleased to be able to sponsor this
legislation at a time when schools like the University of
Wyoming are experiencing record breaking enrollments in their
distance education programs. As some of you may know, the
University of Wyoming has the daunting task of being the only
4-year institution providing access to higher education for
students spread across 98,000 square miles that make up the
State of Wyoming, not to mention those who come from across the
nation and the globe. Since the University of Wyoming launched
``Online UW'' in 1999 class enrollments and course offerings
have increased dramatically. It is my hope that Congress will
be able to modernize the Higher Education Act so that distance
education programs like those at the University of Wyoming will
be able to expand even further to serve more interested
students.
I hope this hearing will allow this Committee to take a
look at a variety of issues surrounding distance education as
we move towards the reauthorization of the Higher Education
Act. I look forward to working with my colleagues to find ways
to hold distance education programs to the same financial aid
accountability standards as those offered on a traditional
semester or quarter basis while ensuring that Federal student
aid programs are free from fraud and abuse.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Senator Wellstone. And Senator Enzi has been as engaged in
this issue and has legislation, and I think will be definitely
one of the key Senators working on this issue.
Ms. Ashby, with your indulgence, can I ask Mr. Shank to
start off just because I can't stay very long? And I apologize
to the other panelists.
Mr. Shank?
STATEMENTS OF STEPHEN SHANK, J.D., CHANCELLOR, CAPELLA
UNIVERSITY; CORNELIA M. ASHBY, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE
AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; A.
FRANK MAYADAS, PH.D., PROGRAM DIRECTOR, ALFRED P. SLOAN
FOUNDATION; AND ROBERT W. MENDENHALL, PRESIDENT, WESTERN
GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY, SALT LAKE CITY, UT
Mr. Shank. Thank you, Senator Wellstone and Senator Enzi. I
would express my appreciation for the opportunity to discuss
with the committee the importance of online education in the
context of the reauthorization.
I would like to address three points. One is the role of
online education in extending access particularly for the
working adults who are so important to our social success; I
would like to talk about the educational effectiveness of this
instructional format; and, finally, a brief look at the future
prospects for continuing innovation in technology-enabled
teaching and learning.
Online education has been one of the most promising and
exciting innovations in higher education. It has become a
widely used and accepted instructional method for both distance
programs and on-campus programs. Eighty-four percent of
American 4-year colleges and universities offer distance
courses, much of that online. Currently, there are 2.2 million
students enrolled in these distance courses.
We at Capella University like to think that we are an
example of what is going on here. We are recently accredited 4-
year university--or recently accredited virtual university, I
meant to say. We serve 6,500 working adult students pursuing
undergraduate and graduate degree programs residing in all 50
States. And for these students, Federal financial aid is very
important. Fifty-five percent of our students do use Federal
financial aid because we are extending opportunities to people
who need both economic assistance and educational support.
The working adult population, as Senator Wellstone
mentioned, is critically important in terms of providing
educational opportunities, and we are talking about both the
social and the economic success of our society.
There are millions of people who have continuing education
needs in the form of work-related knowledge requirements,
changes imposed by technology all the time. It is almost a
majority of Americans now that are enrolled, adults in the
higher education programs, and that will soon become a
majority. This is a population that has been underserved by
campus-based education. We are talking about busy people who
don't have 2 hours a night 3 nights a week to drive back and
forth.
The other thing that might be of interest to the committee,
we estimate that there are currently 120,000 students, again,
primarily adults, enrolled in fully online degree programs. We
estimate that this will grow steadily throughout the decade and
we will get to a point where there will be in the range of 1.5
million enrollments by 2010. So this is not a minor trend in
education.
It is not only access that leads adults to choose to study
online. For many people, this becomes their preferred method of
study because it is so effective in addressing the way adults
learn. It allows for experience-based active learning, high
levels of interaction in the classroom, and also the ability to
have real interaction on a professional level with peers and
with faculty. This is an effective form of education.
Senator Wellstone and our State of Minnesota has had a lot
of vision in recognizing the role of technology as a bridge
that can bring economic opportunity and educational
opportunities to people in out-State Minnesota, particularly in
economically impacted areas. We are proud of the role we can
play. We think the opportunities are immense.
We absolutely agree that we need to talk not only about
extending access, but talk about standards and talk about
quality. Because if we could clear the air on the standards
issue, the ability to take this powerful form of education to
its full potential will be really tremendous.
There is a ton of academic research which shows that well-
designed online learning produces academic outcomes as
effective as traditional campus-based methods. Our plea would
be, as we talk about educational effectiveness, that we focus
on the real results, the learning outcomes and that we move
away from our sort of shop-worn tendency to focus on
educational inputs like contact hours or seat time or
educational processes.
This is a form of education which takes place on a computer
platform. We can measure what goes on, we can analyze results,
and we can use it as basis for continuing improvement of
education.
My final point would have to do with what does the future
look like for continuing education. I would say there is good
news here if we have a supportive Federal policy environment.
Educators know a lot about delivering effective learning
online. Now we face the real prospect of expanding public
access to broadband connectivity. The numbers show about one-
quarter of American households now have access to broadband.
What does this mean? It means that educators can incorporate
powerful teaching tools, like rich media, embedded assessments,
and computer-based assessments. This is potentially very
powerful. It gives us the tools to improve access and quality
not only for the adults I have been talking about, but for the
younger students, and we really need to bear in mind over the
next 10 years it is the younger students that are the most
technology savvy, and they expect that the educational system
will begin to look more like the real-life experience using the
Internet.
I would close with a plea. I think it is clear that the
potential of Web-based learning is very strong and very
powerful. That is what the Commission on Web-based Learning
found and recommended. The current Title IV rules are overly
restrictive as it impacts high-quality online education.
We would hope that Congress in its role in fostering
healthy educational innovation will create appropriate
financial aid policies which allow the development of quality
education, which does put the focus on real outcomes, which
balances the need for integrity--and we absolutely agree with
that--the need for quality with the very real need to make
better progress in improving educational access in America.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Shank. Excellent
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shank follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stephen G. Shank
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify about the importance of online learning in our
system of higher education. I am Steve Shank, Chancellor and Founder of
Capella University.
SUMMARY
Online learning is one of the most exciting and promising
developments in higher education over the past decade. This educational
format leverages the power of technology to enrich learning and create
new educational opportunities. Millions of students are enrolled in
online courses offered by the full range of higher education
institutions from virtual universities to traditional universities and
public and private four and 2-year colleges. Online courses extend
educational access to working adults, who have been previously
underserved, and enrich instruction for traditional campus based
students. A substantial body of research demonstrates that web based
instruction produces quality learning outcomes comparable to
traditional programs. As one of the pioneers in online education,
Capella University can attest that we are just now beginning to realize
the enormous potential of online education. In the future we can expect
ongoing innovation and a further diffusion of technology-based learning
which will improve access and quality across the entire spectrum of
education in America. This is vital to the achievement of a well
educated society and a productive workforce. The re-authorization of
the Higher Education Act provides a critical opportunity for Congress
to promote the continued growth of online education. We look forward to
working with the committee and the Department of Education on the re-
authorization of the Higher Education Act to ensure that the student
financial aid rules appropriately accommodate this important component
of our educational system.
BACKGROUND ON CAPELLA
Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Capella is a fully online,
regionally accredited university. Our mission is to use modern
technology to create educational access for working adults who need to
advance their education, but who might not otherwise be able to do so
because of job or family commitments. We serve 6,500 online degree
students who reside in all 50 States. Capella offers Bachelor of
Science completion programs in Business and Technology, and an array of
Master's and doctoral programs in the fields of Education, Human
Services, Information Technology, Management and Psychology.
Capella is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, member of
the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Throughout our
university's development, our experience has been that the
accreditation process has provided helpful and effective challenges to
us with respect to developing our institutional capabilities and
assuring effective learning outcomes for students.
Fifty-five percent of our students receive Federal student
financial aid as a result of Capella's participation in the Department
of Education's Distance Learning Demonstration Program which waives
certain statutory and regulatory provisions relating to Title IV
funding.
Our online courses provide a good example of the types of web-based
instructional formats now being used throughout higher education. They
are faculty-led, highly collaborative, and based on an active learning
approach grounded in the extensive research about effecting adult
education. Capella's students are challenged to apply their learning
immediately to their responsibilities at work. The typical course is
divided into eight to ten weekly learning units, delivered over a
standard 12 week quarter term.
The e-course room is the central point for interaction among
students and the instructor. The courses are led by qualified faculty
instructors who have the terminal degree in their field and extensive
experience teaching in both traditional and online higher education
environments. The faculty instructor serves as a content expert, guide
to the development of expected academic and professional capabilities
and facilitator of discussion among students. The average faculty to
student ratio for a course is 1:12.
The weekly course materials may include offline reading, online
materials and streaming media, case studies and problem-based team
assignments. Every student is required to participate substantively in
the week's assignments, which may include required discussions and/or
team projects. The student participation occurs via asynchronous
postings in a ``threaded'' (or schedule-independent) discussion format.
This structure enables active participation in a social learning
environment, where students can process, integrate and reinforce
learning with their peers. At the same time, it creates the scheduling
flexibility which is so important to giving working adults real access
to higher education.
Each learning unit specifies clearly established unit learning
objectives. We are midway through the development of a competency-based
educational model. The unit learning outcomes must be related to
specified professional competencies. We require student demonstration
of the achievement of the learning outcomes and related competencies.
An outcomes assessment requirement is built into the curriculum at the
course and program levels. Generally applicable assessment guidelines
are provided to the faculty to insure consistency of learning outcomes.
OVERVIEW OF DISTANCE LEARNING
The 10-year period of our university's development has been one of
fruitful innovation in technology-enabled education. There has been
steady growth in the use of online instruction by institutions of
higher education. The Internet has become a quasi-universal information
and educational media--54 percent of Americans are now online.
This includes a growing Internet usage by ethnic minority
Americans. Capitalizing on this important development, educational
institutions across the country--both traditional and non-traditional--
have implemented online instructional formats which are highly
interactive and which effectively enable achievement of the intended
learning outcomes.
Web-based education has grown to a point where it is an accepted
method of academic instruction in both distance and on-campus programs.
Eighty-four percent of 4-year colleges reported that they expect to
offer distance education courses in 2002. The Web-based Education
Commission notes that 2.2 million students are expected to enroll in
distance courses, up from 710,000 in 1998. Traditional ``brick and
mortar'' institutions frequently find that when they offer an online
version of a campus-based course, on-campus students compete for the
right to enroll. The trend in distance education technologies is toward
internet-based technologies. In 1995, 22 percent of institutions
offered Internet courses using asynchronous delivery. By 1998, this
grew to 60 percent.
Of particular relevance for student financial aid policy, we
estimate that there are currently 120,000 learners enrolled in fully-
online degree programs. These enrollments are expected to grow steadily
through 2007 where it is estimated that 10 percent (or roughly 1.5
million) of higher education enrollments will be online-only.
Another important trend is the continuing growth of adult
enrollments in higher education. The adult segment has grown much more
rapidly than the traditional college age student population. In 2002,
adults account for 43 percent of all enrollments in undergraduate
programs. It has been projected that by 2010, there will be 6.8 million
students who are 25 and over.
These trends--increased Internet use, growth in the quantity and
quality of online education, and increased enrollment of adult
students--converge to address compelling economic and social needs for
improved access to education. Department of Education statistics
clearly demonstrate that higher levels of educational achievement
result in higher income for all groups regardless of gender, race or
ethnicity. Moreover, in our knowledge-based economy, millions of
working individuals face continuing education needs which are driven by
such forces as technology changes, global competitive pressure, and
mandatory job-related continuing education.
MEETING THE EDUCATIONAL NEEDS OF WORKING ADULTS
I am emphasizing the educational needs of working adults, because
it is this population which is primarily enrolled in fully online
degree programs. There are several compelling reasons why adult
students are increasingly choosing to study online.
The first reason is access. Online education solves the logistical
problems faced by working adults who have multiple commitments and
responsibilities, and limited free time and scheduling flexibility. A
very typical example is a student living in Chicago. She has a full
time job and is the mother of 2 children. She spent 7 years earning an
Associates degree in a traditional program. She then tried to continue
her education in a traditional Bachelor's program, but had to drop out
because of commuting hassles. Now, 2 years after enrolling online,
she's about to complete her Bachelors degree.
Beyond the benefit of educational access, online learning may, in
fact, become the preferred method of learning for many. Adults benefit
from an education model based on participation, mutual respect, and
small group work. They need socialization with peers and engaged
faculty, and education that is timely and experience-centered. Online
learning offers the flexibility to address these varied educational
needs.
This learning environment can be particularly welcoming to many
students from a variety of diverse backgrounds. When participating
online, personal attributes such as age, gender, and ethnicity do not
get in the way of how one is perceived by colleagues and faculty.
Capella University is very proud that our minority enrollment figures
meet or exceed those of most traditional universities.
As an example of the potential of online education to address
socially important lifelong learning needs, I am very proud that in our
home State of Minnesota our university has been able to respond to a
challenge from Senator Wellstone to create educational opportunities
for dislocated Iron range workers in northern Minnesota. Senator
Wellstone has been a great champion of the working adult. In response
to his challenge, Capella has allotted $500,000 in scholarships and
grants for the benefit of dislocated Iron range workers and their
families. In connection with this initiative, Senator Wellstone
facilitated cooperative relationships between our university and
community colleges in rural Northern Minnesota. This, in turn, has led
us to relationships with many community colleges across the country
that want to train their faculty in online instruction and to give
their alumni better access to opportunities to complete a 4-year
degree. While continuing to work, these students live in communities
which are often not conveniently served by traditional higher education
programs.
EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF ONLINE EDUCATION
I have discussed the benefits of online learning. What about the
educational effectiveness of this model of education?
Research on distance and online learning is being conducted at
universities throughout the world. There have been a wealth of research
findings that demonstrate that well designed online instruction
produces learning outcomes comparable to traditional classroom-based
instructional approaches.
We should expect that online learning meet the same standards of
educational effectiveness as traditional learning models. In assessing
educational effectiveness, the focus should be on achievement of
intended outcomes as opposed to the more widely used approach of merely
evaluating educational inputs such as seat time or contact hours.
Online learning provides an excellent environment for demonstrating the
achievement of both knowledge and performance-based learning outcomes
because the learning is delivered on sophisticated information
infrastructure. At our university, all of our programs and courses must
specify learning outcomes what learners must know and be able to do
upon completion of the instruction. Those learning outcomes must be
measurable, with assessment embedded as a core element of the courses.
We can demonstrate quality educational outcomes. Capella's 3-year
persistence rate of 61 percent is comparable to traditional programs
for adult learners. We intend to benchmark our learning outcomes
against outcomes of traditional programs. However, there is currently
insufficient data available for educational outcomes for the working
adult population as a discrete student segment. This is something the
higher education community needs to address. As we gain additional
years of experience with the Title IV student financial aid program, we
expect that our default rate will remain much lower than the national
norm.
KEY ISSUES FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION ACT RE-AUTHORIZATION
A. The Importance of Financial Aid
Federal financial aid is as important to creating educational
access as is web-based educational delivery. While the vast majority of
adult students are employed, the added expense, the deferred income,
and time commitments related to their education impose additional
economic burdens. Research on adult student persistence toward degree
completion has shown that ability to pay (including financial aid) has
a direct effect on adult students' completion of their education.
Fifty-five percent of online students at our university rely on Federal
financial aid.
Unfortunately, the current Title IV financial aid rules penalize
students studying online. It is critical that the Title IV rules be
modified to permit participation by quality online education programs.
The Distance Education Demonstration Project, which provides a limited
exemption to the Title IV prohibition against online education, will
expire on June 30, 2004. As a participant in the Demonstration Project,
we respectfully request that the selected waivers granted under the
demonstration project be extended until the re-authorization of the
Higher Education Act is completed.
B. The Need for Modification of the Title IV 50 Percent Rules to
Accommodate Quality Online Education Programs
The ``50 Percent Rules'' contained in the Title IV student
financial aid legislation require institutions participating in Title
IV programs to offer at least 50 percent of their instruction in a
classroom based instructional format. Under these rules institutions
which offer more than 50 percent of their instruction in an online
format are excluded from Title IV financial aid participation.
Congress adopted the 50 Percent Rules in the Higher Education
Amendments of 1992. At that time a primary Congressional focus was to
address financial aid abuse, much of which related to correspondence
schools offering vocational programs. The 50 Percent Rules were adopted
before the development of faculty-led interactive online education and
before this educational format became an accepted method of academic
instruction.
In the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, Congress recognized the
potential of online education. Congress mandated a Distance Learning
Demonstration Project to facilitate an evaluation of financial aid
delivery to students enrolled in online or other distance education
programs. Pursuant to the Demonstration Project, the Secretary of
Education was authorized to grant waivers of the 50 Percent Rules and
other Title IV restrictions to permit Title IV financial aid
participation by online and other distance learning institutions. The
Secretary has granted waivers of the 50 Percent Rules to approximately
15 institutions and consortium groups.
As a fully online institution, Capella University has participated
in the Federal student financial aid program since 1998 and
subsequently due to the 50 Percent Rule waivers. The Demonstration
Program will expire on June 30, 2004. After that expiration date,
institutions that deliver instruction primarily in an online format
will no longer be eligible for Title IV financial aid participation
without Congressional action.
The Fifty Percent Rules have the effect of discriminating unfairly
against students who choose to pursue their education at online
institutions. They also penalize those schools that specialize in
online instruction. The application of these provisions is anomalous
and inconsistent. It depends on whether the institution offering the
online program offers a majority of its instruction in the traditional
classroom teaching format and on the Department's specific methodology
for calculating the fifty percent requirement. The rules do not
generally prohibit financial aid to students pursuing a degree program
online. They only prohibit participation by institutions which
primarily teach online.
As online instruction becomes more and more important in higher
education, the current 50 Percent Rules will have several counter
productive effects. First, they will unfairly penalize the category of
academic institutions, such as Capella University, which specialize in
online education. This discriminatory effect is unrelated to quality
assurance concerns. Because these institutions specialize in online
instruction, they have developed a substantial body of experience and
expertise in delivering high quality online education. Such
institutions also tend to be among the most innovative in higher
education in continuing to improve and extend online educational
delivery capabilities. Second, the programming choices made by
institutions which offer both online and traditional instructional
programs will be artificially constrained by the rigidity of the 50
Percent Rule requirements, no matter what the needs of their students
may be. These counter productive effects have no relationship to the
originally intended objective of preventing correspondence program type
abuse.
C. Reform of Fifty Percent Rule
The Federal student aid program has achieved great progress over
the past 10 years in reducing abuse and defaults. No serious
institution wants to reopen the door to the types of financial-aid
abuse experienced previously. The policy objective should be to refine
the financial aid participation rules to accommodate quality online
education programs while retaining appropriate safeguards against
abuse. This can be done by creating a limited exception to the 50
Percent Rules to permit participation by quality online educational
programs. We look forward to working with the Committee during the re-
authorization of the Higher Education Act on this issue.
At present an institution must be accredited by an accrediting
agency recognized by the Secretary. We believe that any reform to the
50 Percent Rules should include the following key concepts: (a) The
online instructional program is offered by an institution authorized to
grant academic degrees at the level of AAS or higher; (b) The courses
are faculty led; (c) The courses require a specified level of learner
interaction with the class per measurement period; and (d) The
institution regularly assesses course and program learning outcomes,
including persistence and graduation rates. Such outcomes are reported
annually to the Secretary.
A limited exception to the 50 Percent Rules should be flexible
enough to allow participation by legitimate online degree programs. At
the same time, such an exception would limit participation to academic
programs that are faculty led and which require measurable student
participation in courses. The requirement of institutional
accreditation by a recognized accrediting agency provides appropriate
assurance as to faculty credentials, institutional capability and
student support services. The accrediting bodies have developed
specific guidelines for evaluating the quality of online education
programs.
These core concepts would serve Federal policy interests issues of
promoting quality, choice and innovation in higher education while
preserving safeguards against abuse.
CONCLUSION
I would like to conclude with some comments about the future
outlook for technology-delivered learning. This is particularly
important since the Higher Education Act re-authorization will
influence higher education over the next decade.
Higher education is not a static world. It's experiencing exciting
innovation. Over the next 10 years we will see ongoing technology-
enabled innovation which will have a profound effect on educational
quality and access, and will benefit all sectors of American education
from K-12 through graduate and professional schools.
Educators know a lot about delivering effective online instruction.
We can now look forward to increasing public access to high band-width
connectivity via DSL and cable modems. Increasingly, this will enable
educators to incorporate such instructional enhancements as rich media,
computer-based simulations, learning communities and embedded
assessments. These instructional tools will be used in both in purely
online programs and in traditional campus-based programs. They will
broaden educational opportunities for both adult students and younger
students, who are the most technology-savvy segment of our population
and who expect that the web will be integrated into their educational
experience.
We will see expanding cooperation among educational institutions as
they seek to leverage their technology resources. I've mentioned our
growing relationships with 2-year colleges. We are now beginning to
explore opportunities to help K-12 schools take better advantage of
technology-enabled education.
Web-based education is effective. It is playing an increasingly
important role in improving educational access and quality in America.
We urge Congress to craft student financial aid rules in the re-
authorization legislation which accommodate this valuable instructional
model and which also accommodate ongoing educational innovation. Such
innovation is squarely within the tradition of educational
experimentation and adaptation in response to changing social and
economic needs in our society.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Committee. I am
pleased to answer any questions that the Committee may have.
Senator Wellstone. Ms. Ashby?
[Pause.]
Senator Enzi. [presiding]. Someday we will be able to turn
those on by computer.
[Laughter.]
If that one is not working, maybe we can trade a microphone
here for the moment. There you go.
Ms. Ashby. Senator Enzi, I appreciate the opportunity to
testify on distance education and its implications for the
student financial aid programs authorized in Title IV of the
Higher Education Act. Distance education is not a new concept,
but in recent years, it has assumed markedly new forms and
greater prominence. At the same time, it has posed challenges
with regard to the prevention of fraud and abuse in the Title
IV programs.
Title IV aid is an important consideration for many
students who take distance education courses. For the 1999-2000
school year, about 40 percent of the students who took their
entire program through distance education applied for Title IV
aid, and 31 percent received such aid.
As you know, your committee asked us to assess the current
status of distance education. Today, I will briefly discuss the
early results of our work. Specifically, I will provide
information on the characteristics of distance education
students and postsecondary schools that offer distance
education; Title IV aid issues related to distance education;
the use of distance education in minority-serving
institutions--that is, historically black colleges and
universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal
colleges; and, last, the role of accrediting agencies in
reviewing distance education programs.
About 1.5 million of 19 million postsecondary students took
at least one distance education course in the 1999-2000 school
year. Compared to other students, the distance education
students tend to be older and are more likely to be employed
full-time and attending school part-time. They have higher
incomes and are more likely to be married. Most students take
distance education courses at public institutions, with more
taking courses from 2-year schools than from 4-year schools.
The Internet is the most common mode of delivery for providing
distance education.
Several distance education issues related to Title IV have
surfaced. One such issue, known as the 50-percent rule,
involves students who attend institutions that provide half or
more of their course work through distance education classes or
who have half or more of their students enrolled in such
classes.
When institutions exceed the 50-percent threshold, their
students become ineligible for Title IV aid. Our initial work
indicates that students enrolled in about 20 Title IV-eligible
institutions may face this problem soon.
Another issue, the 12-hour rule, involves the amount of
instructional time that must be provided for students to
qualify for Title IV aid. The 12-hour rule defines each week of
instruction in a program that does not have a standard course
length as 12 hours of instruction, examination, or preparation
for examination. Some distance education courses do not
necessarily fit this model.
While our work involving the use of distance education at
minority-serving institutions is not yet completed, the
preliminary data indicate that MSIs, and, more specifically,
minority students at MSIs, make less use of distance education
than students at other schools. We will send questionnaires to
officials at all three MSI groups to gain a better
understanding of their use of distance education technology.
In the meantime, the available data show that about 6
percent of undergraduates students at HBCUs are enrolled in at
least one distance education course, and about 1 percent took
their entire program through distance education. These rates
are lower than those for students at nonMSIs.
About 51 percent of the undergraduates at Hispanic-serving
institutions are Hispanic, but they comprise only about 40
percent of the undergraduate students enrolled in distance
education classes at those institutions. We were unable to
develop data on the extent that tribal college students use
distance education. However, officials at several tribal
colleges told us that distance education is an appealing way to
deliver college courses to potential students who live in
communities dispersed over a large geographical area.
Accrediting agencies play an important role in reviewing
distance education programs. They and the Department of
Education are the gatekeepers with respect to ensuring quality
at postsecondary institutions, including those that offer
distance education. We plan to look at how accrediting agencies
are reviewing distance education programs and the standards
they are using. We also plan to do work that will enable us to
identify any improvements needed in Education's oversight of
accrediting agencies.
In conclusion, distance education has grown rapidly over
the last few years, and our work indicates that it might
present new educational opportunities for students. However,
Congress and the administration need to ensure that changes to
the Higher Education Act and regulations do not increase the
chances of fraud and abuse in the Title IV programs. The work
we have yet to complete for our final report will examine in
more detail whether additional actions are needed to enhance
access to higher education while maintaining the integrity of
the Federal financial aid programs as it relates to distance
education.
This concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer
any questions.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ashby follows:]
Prepared Statement of Cornelia M. Ashby
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I appreciate the
opportunity to testify on issues related to distance education \1\ and
implications for the Federal Government's student financial aid
programs. Increasingly, the issues of distance education and Federal
student aid intersect. About 1 in every 13 postsecondary students
enrolls in at least one distance education course, and the Department
of Education (Education) estimates that the number of students involved
in distance education has tripled in just 4 years. As the largest
provider of financial aid to postsecondary students, the Federal
Government has a considerable interest in distance education.
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\1\ The Higher Education Act defines distance education as an
educational process where the student is separated in time or place
from the instructor.
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Mr. Chairman, as you know, your Committee and the Ranking Member
and two members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce,
asked us to assess the current status of distance education. We will
issue our final report in September 2003. Today, I will discuss the
early results of our work. My testimony will provide information on (1)
the demographic characteristics of distance education students and the
institutional characteristics of postsecondary schools that offer
distance education; (2) Federal student financial aid issues related to
distance education; (3) the use of distance education at Minority
Serving Institutions; \2\ and (4) the role of accrediting agencies in
reviewing distance education programs. A major part of my testimony
today is based on our analysis of data from the National Postsecondary
Student Aid Study (NPSAS),\3\ an Education database covering more than
19 million postsecondary students. We did our work from April through
September 2002 in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards.
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\2\ We are examining three types of Minority Serving Institutions:
Hispanic Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and
Universities, and Tribal Colleges. Hispanic Serving Institutions are
defined as having at least 25 percent of its full-time equivalent
students Hispanic, of which no less than 50 percent are low-income
individuals. Historically Black Colleges and Universities are defined
as, among other things, any historically Black college or university
that was established prior to 1964 and whose principal mission was, and
is, the education of Black Americans. A tribally controlled college or
university is an institution which is formally controlled, or has been
formally sanctioned, or chartered, by the governing body of an Indian
tribe or tribes.
\3\ The NPSAS is conducted approximately ever 3-4 years by the
National Center for Education Statistics in the Department of
Education. It is a nationwide survey designed to collect demographic
information on postsecondary students, as well as information on how
postsecondary students fund their education. The most recent NPSAS
covers students attending over 6,000 Title IV eligible institutions
during the 1999-2000 school year. NPSAS defines distance education as
courses delivered off campus using live, interactive television or
audio; prerecorded television or video; CD-ROM; or a computer-based
system such as, the Internet, e-mail, or chat rooms. NPSAS does not
cover correspondence students.
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A decade ago, when distance education was largely the province of
correspondence schools, concerns about fraud and abuse by some schools
led the Federal Government to place restrictions on, among other
things, the percentage of courses an institution could provide by
distance education and still qualify to participate in the Federal aid
programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA).
Now, however, with distance education growing rapidly and becoming more
a part of mainstream higher education through courses taught by
Internet or videoconferencing, the Congress is reexamining these and
other distance education rules to deternnine if changes are warranted.
The Congress has also expressed an interest in knowing how Minority
Serving Institutions are using distance education technology. Minority
Serving Institutions offer postsecondary opportunities to nearly 2
million students and many of these students are first generation
college students.
IN SUMMARY
Overall, about 1.5 million out of 19 million postsecondary students
took at least one distance education course in the 1999-2000 school
year. These 1.5 million distance education students differ from other
postsecondary students in a number of respects. Compared to other
students, they tend to be older and are more likely to be employed
full-time and attending school part-time. They also have higher incomes
and are more likely to be married. Most students take distance
education courses at public institutions, with more taking courses from
2-year schools than from 4-year schools. The Internet is the most
common mode of delivery for providing distance education.
Many students who take distance education courses participate in
Federal student aid programs. About one-third of undergraduates and
graduate students who take all their course work through distance
education receive Title IV financial aid. As distance education
continues to grow, several major aspects of Federal laws, rules, and
regulations may need to be reexamined. Certain rules may need to be
modified if a small, but growing number of schools are to remain
eligible for student aid. Students attending these schools may become
ineligible for student aid because their distance education programs
are growing and may exceed statutory and regulatory limits on the
amount of distance education an institution can offer. Other issues
involve how to account for student participation in distance education
and differences in student aid between some distance education students
and classroom students.
In general, students at Minority Serving Institutions use distance
education less extensively than students at other schools. For example,
undergraduates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities use
distance education at a lower rate than students who attend non-
Minority Serving Institutions. Also, undergraduate Hispanic students
attending Hispanic Serving Institutions use distance education less
often than other students at these institutions.
Accrediting agencies play an important role in reviewing distance
education programs. They, and Education, are the ``gatekeepers'' with
respect to ensuring quality at postsecondary institutions--including
those that offer distance education programs. The HEA allows
accrediting agencies to develop their own standards for ensuring the
quality of education provided by the institutions they accredit. It
also gives Education the authority to recognize those accrediting
agencies it considers to be reliable authorities on the quality of
education provided by the institutions they accredit. Critical issues
include how well the accrediting agencies and Education are carrying
out their responsibilities and whether changes are needed in HEA.
The work that we have yet to complete for our final report will
examine in more detail whether additional actions are needed to enhance
access to higher education while maintaining the integrity of the
Federal student aid programs as it relates to distance education.
BACKGROUND
Distance education is not a new concept, but in recent years, it
has assumed markedly new forms and greater prominence. Distance
education's older form was the correspondence course--a home study
course generally completed by mail. More recently, distance education
has increasingly been delivered in electronic forms, such as
videoconferencing and the Internet. Some of these newer forms share
more features of traditional classroom instruction. For example,
students taking a course by videoconference generally participate in an
actual class in which they can interact directly with the instructor.
Many postsecondary schools have added or expanded electronically-based
programs, so that distance education is now relatively common across
the entire postsecondary landscape. We estimate that in the 1999-2000
school year, about 1.5 million of the 19 million students involved in
postsecondary education took at least one electronically transmitted
distance education course. Education reports that an estimated 84
percent of 4-year institutions will offer distance education courses in
2002.
While newer forms of distance education may incorporate more
elements of traditional classroom education than before, they can still
differ from a traditional educational experience in many ways. For
example, Internet-based distance education, in which coursework is
provided through computer hookup, may substitute a computer screen for
face-to-face interaction between student and instructor. Chat rooms,
bulletin boards, and e-mail become common forms of interaction. Support
services, such as counseling, tutoring, and library services, may also
be provided without any face-to-face contact.
As the largest provider of student financial aid to postsecondary
students (an estimated $52 billion in fiscal year 2002), the Federal
Government has a substantial interest in the quality of distance
education. Under Title IV of the HEA, the Federal Government provides
grants, work-study wages, and student loans to millions of students
each year. For the most part, students taking distance education
courses can qualify for this aid in the same way as students taking
traditional courses.
Differences between distance education and traditional education
pose challenges for Federal student aid policies and programs. For
example, in 1992, the Congress added requirements to the HEA to deal
with problems of fraud and abuse at correspondence schools--the primary
providers of distance education in the early 1990's.\4\ These
requirements placed limitations on the use of Federal student aid at
these schools due to poor quality programs and high default rates on
student loans. Such problems demonstrate why it is important to monitor
the outcomes of such forms of course delivery. In monitoring such
courses, the Federal Government has mainly relied on the work of
accrediting agencies established specifically for providing outside
reviews of an institution's educational programs.
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\4\ Title IV of the HEA makes a distinction between students who
enroll in correspondence courses and those who enroll in
telecommunications courses. For example, students enrolled in
correspondence courses cannot be considered more than half-time
students for student financial aid purposes, even though they may be
taking a full credit load.
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characteristics of distance education students and institutions that
offer distance education
Our analysis of the NPSAS showed that the estimated 1.5 million \5\
postsecondary students who have taken distance education courses have
different demographic characteristics when compared with the
characteristics \6\ of postsecondary students who did not enroll in
distance education. These differences included the following.
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\5\ Of the 1.5 million distance education students, 1.26 million
were undergraduates and 272 thousand were graduate students. In total,
there were an estimated 19.2 million postsecondary students, or 16.5
million undergraduates and 2.7 million graduate students in the 1999-
2000 school year.
\6\ When we cite differences in student characteristics between
distance education students and students who did not take any distance
education courses, the differences are statistically significant at the
95 percent confidence level.
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Distance education students are older. As figure 1 demonstrates,
students who took all their courses through distance education tended
to be older, on average, when compared to other students.
Distance education students are more likely to be married. Figure 2
shows that graduate and undergraduate students that took all of their
courses through distance education are more likely to be married than
those taking no distance education courses.
Undergraduates taking distance education courses are more likely to
be female. Women represented about 65 percent of the undergraduate
students who took all their courses through distance education. In
contrast, they represented about 56 percent of undergraduates who did
not take a distance education course. For graduate students, there was
no significant difference in the gender of students who took distance
education courses and those who did not.
Distance education students are more likely to work full-time. As
figure 3 shows, a higher percentage of distance education students work
full-time when compared to students who did not take any distance
education courses. This difference was greatest among graduate students
where about 85 percent of the students that took all of their courses
through distance education worked full-time compared to 51 percent of
students who did not take any distance education courses.
Distance education students are more likely to be part-time
students. As might be expected, distance education students tend to go
to school on a part-time basis. For undergraduates, about 63 percent of
the students who took all their courses through distance education were
part-time students while about 47 percent of the students who did not
take any distance education courses were part-time students. This trend
also occurred among graduate students (about 79 percent of those who
took their entire program through distance education were part-time
students compared with about 54 percent of those who did not take any
distance education courses).
Distance education students have higher average incomes. Figure 4
shows that in general, graduate students that took distance education
courses tended to have higher average incomes than students that did
not take any distance education courses. We found similar patterns for
undergraduate students.
In addition to the demographic characteristics of distance
education students, NPSAS provides certain insights on the
characteristics of institutions that offer distance education
programs.\7\ Among other things, it provides data on the modes of
delivery that institutions used to provide distance education and the
types of institutions that offered distance education.
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\7\ The design for NPSAS involves selecting a nationally
representative sample of postsecondary education institutions and
students within those institutions. NPSAS data come from multiple
sources and includes a limited amount of data on institutional
characteristics. This information is useful in developing some limited
insights on institutions that offer distance education programs.
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Public institutions enrolled the most distance education students.
For undergraduates, public institutions enrolled more distance
education students than either private non-profit or proprietary
institutions. Of undergraduates who took at least one distance
education class, about 85 percent \8\ did so at a public institution
(about 79 percent of all undergraduates attended public institutions),
about 12 percent did so at private non-profit institutions (about 16
percent of all undergraduates attended private non-profit
institutions), and about 3 percent did so at proprietary schools (about
five percent of all undergraduates attended proprietary schools). For
graduate students, public institutions also enrolled more--about 63.5
percent--distance education students than private non-profit or
proprietary schools (32 and 4.5 percent, respectively). About 58
percent, 40 percent, and two percent of all graduate students attended
public institutions, private non-profit, and proprietary schools,
respectively.
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\8\ Of the 85 percent of undergraduate students who took at least
one distance education course at a public institution, about 55 percent
did so at 2-year or less institutions and 30 percent did so at 4-year
institutions.
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Institutions used the Internet more than any other mode to deliver
distance education. Postsecondary institutions used the Internet more
than any other mode to deliver distance education. At the three main
types of institutions (public, private non-profit, and proprietary
\9\), more than half of the undergraduate students who took at least
one distance education course did so over the Internet. Over 58 percent
of undergraduate distance education students at public institutions
used the Internet and over 70 percent of undergraduate distance
education students at private non-profit and proprietary schools also
used the Internet. Institutions that offered graduate programs also
used the Internet as the primary means of delivering distance education
courses. For graduate students who took at least one distance education
class, 65 percent of students at public institutions used the Internet,
compared with about 69 percent of students at private non-profit
institutions, and about 94 percent of students at proprietary
institutions.
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\9\ Proprietary schools are for-profit postsecondary institutions.
They can include traditional 2- and 4-year colleges and universities as
well as trade and technical schools.
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Institutions enrolled the most distance education students in
subjects related to business, humanities, and education. For
undergraduates, about 21 percent of students who took their entire
program through distance education studied business and 13 percent
studied courses related to the humanities. This is similar to patterns
of students who did not take any distance education classes (about 18
percent studied business and about 15 percent studied humanities). For
graduate students, about 24 percent of students who took their entire
program through distance education enrolled in courses related to
education and about 19 percent studied business. Again, this is similar
to patterns of graduate students who did not take any distance
education classes (about 23 percent studied education and about 17
percent studied business).
GROWTH OF DISTANCE EDUCATION AFFECTS FEDERAL STUDENT AID POLICIES ON
SEVERAL FRONTS
Federal student aid is an important consideration for many students
who take distance education courses, although not to the same degree as
students in more traditional classroom settings. Students who took
their entire program through distance education applied for student aid
at a lower rate than students who did not take any distance education
courses (about 40 percent compared with about 50 percent), and fewer
also received Federal aid (about 31 percent compared with about 39
percent). Nonetheless, even these lower percentages for distance
education represent a substantial Federal commitment.\10\
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\10\ Students who took their entire program through distance
education courses received an estimated $763 million in Federal student
aid in the 1999-2000 school year. Students who took at least one
distance education course may have also received Federal student aid;
however, the data sources used by NPSAS do not distinguish between aid
awarded for distance education courses and traditional classroom
courses.
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A number of issues related to distance education and the Federal
student aid program have surfaced and will likely receive attention
when the Congress considers reauthorization of the HEA or when
Education examines regulations related to distance education. Among
them are the following:
``Fifty percent'' rule limits aid to correspondence and
telecommunication students in certain circumstances. One limitation in
the HEA--called the ``50 percent rule''--involves students who attend
institutions that provide half or more of their coursework through
correspondence or telecommunications classes or who have half or more
of their students enrolled in such classes. When institutions exceed
the 50 percent threshold, their students become ineligible to receive
funds from Federal student aid programs. As distance education becomes
more widespread, more institutions may lose their eligibility. Our
initial work indicates about 20 out of over 6,000 Title IV-eligible
institutions may face this problem soon or have already exceeded the 50
percent threshold. Without some relief, the students that attend these
institutions may become ineligible for student aid from the Federal
Government in the future. As an example, one institution we visited
already offers more than half its courses through distance education:
however, it remains eligible for the student aid program because it has
received a waiver from Education's Distance Education Demonstration
Program.\11\ Without a change in the statute or a continuation of the
waiver, more than 900 of its students will not be eligible for student
aid from the Federal Government in the future.
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\11\ ``The Congress created the Distance Education Demonstration
Program in the 1998 amendments to the HEA to study and test possible
solutions to Federal student aid issues related to distance education.
The program has authority to grant waivers on certain statutory or
regulatory requirements related to distance education and Federal
student financial aid programs, such as the 50 percent rule.
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To deal with this issue, the House passed the Internet Equity and
Education Act of 2001 (H.R. 1992) in October 2001. The House proposal
allows a school to obtain a waiver for the 50 percent rule if it (1) is
already participating in the Federal student loan program, (2) has a
default rate of less than 10 percent for each of the last three years
for which data are available, and (3) has notified the Secretary of
Education of its election to qualify for such an exemption, and has not
been notified by the Secretary that such election would pose a
significant risk to Federal funds and the integrity of Title IV
programs. The Senate is considering this proposal.
Federal student aid policies treat living expenses differently for
some distance education students. Currently, students living off-campus
who are enrolled in traditional classes or students enrolled in
telecommunications classes at least half-time can receive an annual
living allowance for room and board costs of at least $1,500 and
$2,500, respectively. Distance learners enrolled in correspondence
classes are not allowed the same allowance. Whether to continue to
treat these distance education students differently for purposes of
Federal student aid is an open policy question.
Regulations Relating to ``Seat'' Time. Institutions offering
distance education courses that are not tied to standard course lengths
such as semesters or quarters have expressed difficulty in interpreting
and applying Education's ``seat rules,'' which are rules governing how
much instructional time must be provided in order for participants to
qualify for Federal aid.\12\ In particular, a rule called the ``12-hour
rule'' has become increasingly difficult to implement. This rule was
put in place to curb abuses by schools that would stretch the length of
their educational programs without providing any additional instruction
time. Schools would do this to maximize the amount of Federal aid their
students could receive and pass back to the school in the form of
tuition and fees. The rule defined each week of instruction in a
program that is not a standard course length as 12 hours of
instruction, examination, or preparation for examinations. Some
distance education courses, particularly self-paced courses, do not
necessarily fit this model. Further, the rule also produces significant
disparities in the amount of Federal aid that students receive for the
same amount of academic credit, based simply on whether the program
that they are enrolled in uses standard academic terms or not. In
August 2002, Education proposed replacing the 12-hour rule with a ``one
day rule,'' \13\ which would require one day of instruction per week
for any course. This rule currently applies to standard term courses,
and as proposed, it would cover, among other things, nonstandard term
courses. Education plans to publish final regulations that would
include this change on or before November 1, 2002. Some institutions
that might provide nonstandard distance education courses remain
concerned, however, because Education has not identified how the ``one-
day rule'' will be interpreted or applied.
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\12\ Under HEA, a student must receive at least 30 weeks of
instructional time in order to be considered a full-time student for
financial aid purposes. For students operating under standard terms
such as semesters, this is relatively easy to translate into semester
hours. A full-time undergraduate attending a school that operated on
the semester system, for example, would need to complete 24 semester
hours to be considered a full-time student.
\13\ ``The Internet Equity and Education Act (H.R. 1992) includes a
similar definition for a week of instruction.
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In considering changes in policy that are less restrictive but that
could improve access to higher education, it will be important to
recognize that doing so may increase the potential for fraud if
adequate management controls are not in place.
MINORITY SERVING INSTITUTIONS TEND TO USE DISTANCE EDUCATION LESS
FREQUENTLY THAN OTHER SCHOOLS
While our work examining the use of distance education at Minority
Serving Institutions (MSIs) is not yet completed, the preliminary data
indicate that MSIs--and more specifically, minority students at MSIs--
make less use of distance education than students at other schools.
NPSAS includes data for a projectable number of students from
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving
Institutions, but it only includes one Tribal College. We plan to send
a questionnaire to officials at all three MSI groups to gain a better
understanding of their use of distance education technology. In the
meantime, however, the available NPSAS data showed the following:
Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities tend to
use distance education to a lesser extent than non-MSI students. About
6 percent of undergraduate students at Historically Black Colleges and
universities enrolled in at least one distance education course and
about 1.1 percent took their entire program through distance education.
These rates are lower than students who took at least one distance
education course or their entire program through distance education at
non-MSIs.
Hispanic students attending Hispanic Serving Institutions use
distance education at a lower rate than their overall representation in
these schools. About 51 percent of the undergraduates at Hispanic
Serving Institutions are Hispanic, but they comprise only about 40
percent of the undergraduate students enrolled in distance education
classes. This difference is statistically significant. Similarly, our
analysis also shows that the greater the percentage of Hispanic
students at the institution, the lower the overall rate of distance
education use at that school.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Hispanic Serving Institutions can have between 25 percent and
up to 100 percent Hispanic students. Our analysis compares
undergraduate Hispanic Serving Institutions with less than 50 percent
Hispanic students and Hispanic Serving Institutions with 50 percent or
more Hispanic students. Those institutions with 50 percent or more
Hispanic students had a 4 percent participation rate in distance
education; those institutions with less than 50 percent Hispanic
students had a participation rate of 9.6 percent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since NPSAS includes data from only one Tribal College, we were
unable to develop data on the extent that Tribal College students use
distance education. However, our visits to several Tribal Colleges
provide some preliminary insights. Our work shows that distance
education may be a viable supplement to classroom education at many
Tribal Colleges for a number of reasons. Potential students of many
Tribal Colleges live in communities dispersed over large geographic
areas--in some cases potential students might live over a hundred miles
from the nearest Tribal College or satellite campus--making it
difficult or impossible for some students to commute to these schools.
In this case, distance education is an appealing way to deliver college
courses to remote locations. Additionally, officials at one Tribal
College told us that some residents of reservations may be place-bound
due to tribal and familial responsibilities; distance education would
be one of the few realistic postsecondary education options for this
population. Also important, according to officials from some Tribal
Colleges we visited, tribal residents have expressed an interest in
enrolling in distance education courses.
EFFECTIVENESS OF ACCREDITING AGENCIES IS AN IMPORTANT DISTANCE
EDUCATION ISSUE
The HEA focuses on accreditation--a task undertaken by outside
agencies--as the main tool for ensuring quality in postsecondary
programs, including those offered through distance education. The
effectiveness of these accreditation reviews, as well as Education's
monitoring of the accreditation process, remains an important issue.
To be eligible for Federal funds, a postsecondary institution or
program must be accredited by an agency recognized by Education as a
reliable authority on quality.\15\ Education recognizes 58 separate
accrediting agencies for this purpose, of which only 38 are recognized
for Title IV student aid purposes. The 58 accrediting agencies operate
either regionally or nationally, and they accredit a wide variety of
institutions or programs, including public and private, non-profit 2-
year or 4-year colleges and universities; graduate and professional
programs; proprietary vocational and technical training programs; and
non-degree training programs. Some accrediting agencies accredit entire
institutions and some accredit specialized programs, departments, or
schools that operate within an institution or as single purpose,
freestanding institutions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Institutions or programs which have not yet been accredited by
a recognized accrediting agency are also eligible to apply for Federal
funds if Education has satisfactory assurance that the institution or
program will meet the recognized accrediting agency's standards within
a reasonable time. Such institutions or programs are said to hold
``preaccreditation'' status.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The HEA and regulations issued by Education establish criteria
under which Education will recognize an accreditation agency as a
reliable authority regarding the quality of education.\16\ The HEA
states that accrediting agencies must assess quality in 10 different
areas, such as curriculum, student achievement, and program length.
Under the HEA, an accrediting agency is required to include distance
education programs when assessing quality. In doing so, an accrediting
agency must consistently apply and enforce its standards with respect
to distance education programs as well as other educational programs at
the institution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ The regulations are contained in 34 CFR Part 602.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our analysis in this area is not as far along as it is for the
other topics we are discussing today. We plan to review a number, of
accreditation efforts to determine the way in which accrediting
agencies review distance education programs. We expect that our work
will address the following issues:
How well accrediting agencies are carrying out their
responsibilities for reviewing distance education. The HEA does not
contain specific language setting forth how distance learning should be
reviewed. Instead, it identifies key areas that accrediting agencies
should cover, including student achievement and outcomes, and it relies
on accrediting agencies to develop their own standards for how they
will review distance education programs. We will look at how
accrediting agencies are reviewing distance education programs and the
standards that are being used.
How well Education is carrying out its responsibilities and whether
improvements are needed in Education's policies and procedures for
overseeing accrediting agencies. Under the HEA, Education has authority
to recognize those agencies it considers to be reliable authorities on
the quality of education or training provided. Accrediting agencies
have an incentive to seek Education's recognition because without it,
students at the institutions they accredit would not be eligible to
participate in Federal aid programs. We will conduct work to identify
what improvements, if any, are needed in Education's oversight of
accrediting agencies.
In closing, distance education has grown rapidly over the past few
years and our work indicates that distance learning might present new
educational opportunities for students. Congress and the Administration
need to ensure that changes to the HEA and regulations do not increase
the chances of fraud, waste, or abuse to the student financial aid
programs. At the request of this Committee, and members of the House
Committee on Education and the Workforce, we will continue our study of
the issues that we have discussed today.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I will be happy to
respond to any questions you or other members of the Committee may
have.
CONTACT AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For further information, please contact Cornelia M. Ashby at (202)
512-8403. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony
include Jerry Aiken, Neil Asaba, Kelsey Bright, Julian Fogle, Ellen
Habenicht, Chris Hatscher, Jill Peterson, Stan Stenersen, and Susan
Zimmerman.
RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS FROM COMMITTEE BY GAO
United States General Accounting Office,
Washington, DC 20518,
November 6, 2002.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C. 20510-6300.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for the opportunity to respond to
additional questions for the September 26, 2002 hearing on distance
education. If you have any questions concerning my responses, please
feel free to contact me on (202) 512-8403, or my assistant director,
Kelsey Bright, on (202) 512-9037.
Question 1. The GAO report provides great detail on the
demographics of who is in distance education. One of the common
arguments used over on the House side during their debate on H.R. 1992
was that distance education helps individuals in rural areas. Do you
have any data supporting or disputing, this claim?
GAO Response 1. No, we do not. We used the National Postsecondary
Student Aid Study (NPSAS) to develop data on the demographic
characteristics of distance education students. While NPSAS has data on
the characteristics of distance education students, it does not contain
data on where distance education students reside (urban or rural).
For Tribal Colleges--many of which are located in rural settings--
it appears that distance education may be a viable alternative to
classroom education. Based on our visits to several such colleges, we
found that some potential postsecondary students live in remote
locations--away from the Tribal College making it difficult for them to
attend classes offered on campus. For example, Dine College serves the
residents of the Navajo Nation--a reservation that covers a geographic
area of 26,000 square-miles. According to officials at Dine College,
distance education could be one way to serve Dine's student population
because of the large area that it covers.
Question 2. The issue of minorities participating in distance
education has also been used as a means of promoting distance learning.
The report indicates that minorities at minority institutions are not
using this mode of learning. Do you have data on minority participation
at other institutions?
GAO Response 2. As we reported in our written testimony, our
preliminary analysis indicates that, in the 1999-2000 school year,
minority students at Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) make less use
of distance education than students at other schools. For example,
students at Historically Black Colleges and universities tend to use
distance education to a lesser extent than non-MSI students.
In contrast to the above, most black and Hispanic students at non-
MSIs took distance education courses in proportion to their overall
representation at these schools. As Table 1 shows, black undergraduates
comprised 10.8 percent of the total population at non-MSIs and 13.2
percent of the students who took their entire program through distance
education. This difference is not statistically significant. The only
category for which there is a statistically significant difference is
Hispanic undergraduate students, who made up 6.6 percent of the student
population at non-MSIs, but only 3.8 percent of students who took all
of their courses through distance education.
Question 3. The amount of financial aid given to those in distance
education programs is shown to be nearly $800 million. Does this amount
include funds given to students attending institutions who are
participating in the demonstration program?
GAO Response 3. We cannot determine the amount of funds given to
students attending institutions that are participating in the Distance
Education Demonstration Program. NPSAS is based on a methodology that
involves a sample of about 1,000 (out of over 6,000) Title IV eligible
institutions and a sample of over 60,000 students (out of about 19
million) students who attended those institutions. The sample results
are then projected to the entire universe of postsecondary students who
attended Title IV eligible schools. As could be expected, many of the
24 participating institutions in the Distance Education Demonstration
Program were not selected as part of the NPSAS survey. Therefore, it is
not possible to determine through NPSAS the precise amount of Title IV
funds that participating institutions received.
Question 4. Along the same lines do you have data that would
provide us with a breakdown by institution type, of exactly where the
financial aid is going? The report indicates that a majority of the
students are at public institutions, I am just wondering if the Federal
financial aid money follows this path.
GAO Response 4. Based on NPSAS data, in the 1999-2000 school year,
of undergraduate students who received Federal financial aid and who
took their entire programs through distance education, 76 percent
attended public institutions. These students received 71 percent
(approximately $415.8 million) of the total financial aid awarded to
undergraduate students who took their entire programs through distance
education. In the same year, and for the same group of students, 20
percent attended private not-for-profit institutions, and they received
25 percent (approximately $147.4 million) of the total financial aid
awarded to undergraduates who took their entire programs through
distance education. Lastly, 4 percent attended proprietary
institutions, and received 4 percent (approximately $21.8 million) of
the financial aid. See Table 2 below. Because the numbers of graduate
students in the NPSAS sample for each type of institution was too
small, we were unable to calculate similar statistics for graduate
students.
Question 5. Your report indicates that lifting the 12-hour and 50
percent rules will have to be coupled with good management of
institutions. Do you believe there is a way we can help promote this
good management from the Federal level?
GAO Response 5. Yes, we believe that good management can be
promoted from the Federal level. The 12-hour rule and the 50 percent
rules were put in place to help safeguard Federal student aid funds for
certain distance education programs. With the lifting of these rules,
other safeguards will likely be needed. Using student loan default
rates could be one means of attempting to control fraud and abuse. As
an example, Senate Bill 1445 would allow institutions to have more than
50 percent of their classes as correspondence or telecommunication
classes if they can maintain a cohort default rate of 10 percent or
less for each of the most recent three fiscal years for which data are
available. Also, as the Congress continues to hold executive agencies
accountable for results of major Federal programs such as the student
financial aid program, an emphasis on outcomes, such as student
retention rates or program completion rates, could be another way to
help assure the integrity of the Federal student aid programs.
Additionally, as I discussed in my statement, the accrediting agencies
play an important role in reviewing distance education programs and
might offer another avenue to help ensure the integrity of the Federal
student aid programs. Our future work on this assignment will focus on
what improvements, if any, the Department of Education can make to
promote good management and assure the integrity of Federal student aid
programs as it relates to distance education programs. We plan to issue
a report on the results of our work in September 2003.
Question 6. Obviously the 12-hour and 50 percent rules were put in
place because of very real threats to our Federal financial aid system.
Protecting the already limited resources should be our goal as well as
ensuring quality. Would it be fair to say that based on the past
experiences, that we should proceed with caution with respect to
lifting the 50 percent and 12-hour rules?
GAO Response 6. The Congress imposed the 50 percent rules and
Education developed the 12-hour rule in the early 1990's to deal with
problems of fraud and abuse at certain correspondence schools. We
believe that lifting or modifying either of these rules needs to be
done in a way that maintains adequate management controls so the risk
of fraud and abuse does not rise. Education's Distance Education
Demonstration Program has issued waivers on the 50 percent rules to a
number of institutions that participate in the Program. According to
the Director, Distance Education Demonstration Program, about five or
six of the participating institutions really need the waiver and
several may need it in the future. Since, thus far, only a small number
of Title IV eligible schools are having problems with the 50 percent
rules, there may be time to evaluate alternative solutions to modifying
the rules in a way that maintains integrity of the student financial
aid programs.
Although GAO is not taking a position, at this time, on how to
modify, the 50 percent rules, several options are available. Should the
Congress decide to extend the Distance Education Demonstration Program
in the next reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the
Program could continue to be one means of evaluating the effect of
issuing waivers of the 50 percent rules to improve access to
postsecondary education while maintaining adequate management controls
to reduce the risk of fraud and abuse. We plan to conduct additional
work at several of the participating institutions in the Program to
gain a better understanding of what the preliminary results have been
at institutions that have received the waiver for the 50 percent rules.
We will discuss the results of our work in the report that we plan to
issue next year. Senate Bill 1445 would also provide a means of
modifying the rules. For example, it would revise the current rules
that call for a telecommunications course to be considered a
correspondence course if the sum of telecommunications courses and
correspondence courses equaled or exceeded 50 percent of the total
number of courses offered by the institution. It does so by stating
that, in such instances, courses offered via telecommunications shall
not be considered to be correspondence courses for an institution that
(1) is currently eligible for the Federal student loan program and (2)
has less than a 10 percent cohort default rate for each of the three
most recent fiscal years for which data are available.
The 12-hour rule was a Department of Education regulation that was
replaced by the ``one-day rule'' on November 1, 2002. However, whether
a ``one-day rule'' will be an improvement over the 12-hour rule is
uncertain because ``one-day'' has not been defined by Education.
Sincerely yours,
Cornelia M. Ashby,
Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues.
______
Senator Enzi. The next testimony is from Mr. Mayadas from
the Sloan Foundation. Mr. Mayadas?
Mr. Mayadas. Thank you, Senator Enzi. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here.
Since late 1992, even before there was a commercial
Internet, our foundation has had a program in what is now
called online learning or e-learning, through which we have
provided over $45 million to over 65 institutions of higher
education. These and others who have voluntarily joined our
consortium now in the past academic year enrolled about 500,000
students, and they offer over 400 full-degree and certification
programs which can be accessed through the Sloan consortium
website.
We at Sloan believe that online learning represents one of
the most important developments of the past 100 years for
higher education, for it affords access to quality education
for many, many individuals who would, for reasons of proximity,
age, or other circumstances, not have the opportunity. We plan
to continue our support for this area.
The kind of online education I will be talking about is
what I call the interactive model, that is, classes begin on a
particular day with a class taught by a faculty member who
interacts with individuals through a learning management system
and interaction with the instructor and other students is not
incidental or occasional but continuous. The student-faculty
ratio for these is about the same for online classes as it is
for equivalent campus courses.
We think this model is particularly good because it
resembles in some ways the kinds of quality elements that we
associate with our campuses, for on campuses, we provide
students with three things: we provide them with learning
materials; we provide them with more, a professor; and,
finally, we provide them with other students.
In most of our projects, these three elements--learning
materials, the professor, and other students--are preserved for
the off-campus learner as well. We believe that the kind of
quality learning associated with campuses is now possible for
everyone and available in a multiplicity of environments--the
home, the desktop at work, hotel rooms, and quite likely
airplanes as well. Such learning environments operate 24 hours
a day, 7 days a week, though they generally begin and end on
specific days.
Today, I just would like to touch on four topics: one, what
is going on in the field; two, quality; three, workforce
education; and then a short statement about policy
recommendations.
Although much is reported about new kinds of learning
organizations being made possible through online learning, most
online education is, in fact, provided through our conventional
campus-based organizations. For instance, the major State
institutions and, Senator Enzi, in your own State, the
University of Wyoming has a very active program to convert
their excellent continuing education program into an online
version.
In urban environments, we see hybrid or blended courses
appearing alongside entirely online courses. In more rural
environments, where learners are widely geographically
separated, fully online courses are preferred. It is quite
clear, however, that online education equally well serves the
needs of rural as well as urban learners. We estimate that in
the academic year just passed, our estimate is that 3 million
learners enrolled in online courses intended for the off-campus
population. This number does not include the much higher number
of enrollments in traditional campus courses which have some
kind of a Web component to them.
The for-profit education sector is growing. It is a small
part of the total picture, but it is growing and will be
important.
Quality. Many people ask just what kind of quality is there
in online education. The answer, in my opinion, is this: over
many years we have come to recognize that quality is not a
constant, but it depends very much on the institution offering
the degrees and courses. The quality of a particular community
college may differ from that of a State university. The
offerings from a State university may differ in quality from
those of a private institution. Therefore, we at Sloan have
adopted the following view of quality: the quality of the
online offerings of an institution should be about the same as
the traditional classroom on-campus offerings of the same
institution. The appropriate comparison of a degree program
being offered by any institution should, therefore, be with the
equivalent or similar degree program being offered online.
To join Sloan's-C, or the Sloan Consortium, an institution
must be accredited and must be able to assert and to
demonstrate that their online program is equivalent in quality
to their traditional classroom version. We need not try and we
do not try and meet any arbitrary standard of quality.
Just a short description of workforce education. We believe
that online learning has a very significant role for our
workforce. The model in each case that we have promoted is that
we have organized a governing board for each project for
workforce education with members from companies within the
industry and unions representing the workers. The governing
board sets curriculum standards and content in a general
fashion. An educational institution then provides the courses
online and provides the degree.
So, for example, our telecommunications project, called
NACTEL, involved Verizon, SBC, Qwest, and Citizens on the
company side and the CWA and IBEW on the workforce side. The
education provider from this project is Pace University in New
York, which has developed an online telecommunications
associate's degree for telephone technicians. Students are
located all across the country as far away as Hawaii and
Alaska. Thousands have enrolled in the program, and some are
now receiving their degrees.
The NACTEL experience has shown two other striking things:
About 40 percent of those enrolled in NACTEL are women--a
surprise since women do not represent anywhere near that number
in the existing workforce for this position. Their comments
tell us that women see this as an opportunity to move to a
higher-paying position, often moving away from dead-end office
positions.
Another striking result has been the overall success rate
of the learners who, on average, complete--90 percent of them
are completing the rigorous curriculum at a 90-percent
completion rate. The result is a clear indication of the desire
and motivation of the learner population and of the quality,
content, and services provided by Pace University.
We should think of these efforts as only a beginning.
Industry-specific offerings are an important way to ensure
workforce training and offered in asynchronous fashion,
anytime, anyplace, they are a solution to the need for more
family-friendly ways for workers to acquire education and
training.
Just a word about policy. My overall recommendation here is
that our experience with the interactive model of online
learning shows that this way of teaching works and it works in
many disciplines for many segments of our population. It
enables quality education to reach out to vast numbers of
people that otherwise would be denied education and training.
The Government, whether in tuition support, fellowships, or
support of training, should support quality online learning as
it does traditional classrooms. Learning quality, not mode of
delivery, should become the criterion for aid, recognition, and
support.
Thank you.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mayadas follows:]
Prepared Statement of A. Frank Mayadas
My name is Frank Mayadas, I am a Program Director with the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation. Since late 1992, before there even was a
commercial internet, our Foundation has had a program in what is now
called online learning or eLearning, through which we have provided
over $45 million in grant support to over 65 institutions of higher
education. These institutions plus others who have voluntarily joined,
are members of Sloan-C or the Sloan Consortium for Online Education. We
estimate that approximately 500,000 learners enrolled for courses
offered by Sloan-C institutions in the academic year just completed.
Over 400 complete degree and certificate programs are offered by Sloan-
C members, and can be accessed at the Sloan-C website (www.sloan-
c.org).
We at Sloan believe that online learning represents one of the most
important developments of the past 100 years for higher education, for
it affords the prospect of access to quality higher education for many,
many individuals who would, for reasons of proximity, age or other
circumstances, not have this opportunity. We plan to continue our
support for this area.
Today, I propose to touch on four points:
First, I will briefly discuss the range of options that
fall under the general terms: Online Education or eLearning.
Second, I will take up the question of ``quality'' for
online education.
Third, I will provide some perspective on the kinds of
institutions that are involved in online education.
and finally, I would like to discuss applicability of
online learning to workforce development, and how this is likely to
change the character and reach of teaching institutions.
ONLINE LEARNING COMES IN DIFFERENT FORMS
Teaching online can be done in many ways, and is being done in many
ways today. However there are two basic models, and all others fall
somewhere in between. One is a self-study, or ``broadcast'' model in
which materials, which may be quite sophisticated multimedia, but self-
study materials nonetheless, are posted on the web, and these are
perused and studied by learners at their own pace. This model can also
be thought of as a form of online publishing. I remind you that self-
study, mainly through books, but more recently augmented by videotapes
or broadcast TV, has been available for over a century, and unusually
disciplined individuals have been able to learn and earn credentials on
their own.
The second model, the ``interactive'' model is one where
``classes'' begin on a particular day with a cohort group, are taught
by a faculty member who interacts with individuals or the cohort
through group e-mail and chat tools, generally referred to as Learning
Management Software (LMS). Interaction with the instructor is not
occasional or incidental, rather it is regular and continuous, as is
interaction among students. The student/faculty ratio is about the same
for these online classes as that for equivalent campus classes. The
``class'' also ends on a particular day, i.e., when the ``term'' is
completed. This interactive model is the basis for most of the grants
made by Sloan, because we believe it most closely parallels the
learning environments associated with for-credit quality learning. Here
is why:
For a very long time, quality education has been associated with
education on campuses. Campus education has many elements, but there
are three that stand out:
First, students have access to learning materials. These
might include books, classroom handouts such as notes, or special kinds
of educational software, which may be commercial products or developed
and distributed locally by faculty. These learning materials are often
used in self-study fashion.
Second, the student has access to a professor. The
professor determines overall content for the course and the pace of the
course. He/she may add thoughts and insights to what is in the learning
materials, and has the task of assessing how well a student has
learned.
Campuses offer a third important element for learning:
other students. Students turn to friends and colleagues for many
reasons on many occasions, usually informally to seek help for instance
in understanding the particulars of a lecture, or assistance with a
problem set.
We at Sloan constructed our program around the idea that these
three important elements of campus education . . . learning materials,
the professor and other students . . . could be provided through the
Internet to learners at remote locations. In other words, the kind of
quality learning associated with campuses is now possible for everyone
and available in a multiplicity of environments . . . the home, the
desktop at work, hotel rooms, and quite likely on airplanes as well.
Such learning environments operate 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week,
though they generally begin and end on specified days. They allow
anytime, anyplace, ``asynchronous'' learning.
Successful grant applicants in our program have proposed projects
to us that involve an appropriate balance in these three important
educational elements, and all have gone on to implement successful
projects, many of which today are offering full degrees, and in some
cases, multiple degrees. In our projects, as in classroom courses,
students are expected to purchase learning materials such as books and
CD-ROM's. Notes and other materials are usually available as web
postings, and pre-recorded lectures, in a number of cases are made
available as streaming media.
Our online learning model envisions the Internet as primarily a
communications facilitator, between instructor and students, and
students and students, and secondarily as a medium for distribution of
learning materials. To emphasize again: nothing is ``canned'' or pre-
recorded in an interactive course other than the self-study learning
materials which are about the same as the ``canned'' materials used in
campus education. Interactivity here means interactivity with the
instructor and other students and this is all time-elapsed
conversations very similar to e-mail exchanges. The online publishing,
or broadcast model, primarily envisions the Internet as a fast,
efficient distribution medium for learning materials. In the decades to
come, both models will see widespread adoption, as will models that
combine aspects of the two. The broadcast and interactive models have
different economics and consequences.
The broadcast model generally requires expensive efforts and longer
time, to create learning materials, basically multimedia software,
simulations, and video. These expenses might be several hundred
thousand dollars per course, but there really is no limit, and I know
of courses costing over a million dollars. The interactive model
requires relatively little start-up funding, maybe $10,000 or so to
create a college course. Typically, we at Sloan, support projects at a
level of about $150,000 for a full masters degree, and we require that
courses be delivered to learners through very conventional PC's costing
under $1000, and very conventional modem connections to the Internet.
Because student/faculty ratios approximate those on campus, the
interactive model does not lead to a reduction in faculty (in fact, if
total enrollments increase because courses are accessible to more
learners, the need for new faculty also increases).
QUALITY IN ONLINE EDUCATION
The question of quality is an important one. It is important for
the providing institution and for the learner to know just what kind of
education is being offered and received. However, educational quality
is not tied to any fixed standard. Over many years we have become
comfortable with the idea that educational quality is in fact a
variable that depends very much on the nature of the institution
offering the courses and degrees. The quality of a particular community
colleges courses and degrees might be different from the quality of
another community college with similar courses and degrees; the quality
of offerings from a community college may be different from the quality
of a particular State university which in turn may be different in
quality from the offerings of an ``elite'' private college. Therefore,
we at Sloan have adopted the following view of quality: the quality of
the online offerings of an institution should be about the same as the
traditional classroom ``on-campus'' offerings of the same institution.
The appropriate comparison of a degree program being offered by any
institution should therefore be with the equivalent, or similar degree
program being offered on campus.
Consistent with that view of quality, we ask those institutions
receiving Sloan grants to work within a quality framework that has the
following five elements:
ACCESS: Any online offering should expand access to education
beyond what might have been possible with older methods (i.e.,
correspondence). The institution should make an effort to understand
and measure this expansion of access.
LEARNING EFFECTIVENESS: Learning effectiveness should be about
equivalent to learning effectiveness for campus students.
FACULTY ATTITUDES: The institution should have about the same range
of faculty involved in online program as in the equivalent campus
program, and should strive to get a large number of faculty interested
in, and motivated to teach online, so that programs can be expanded as
demand increases.
COST EFFECTIVENESS: The institution should strive to put its online
programs on a sound financial basis so that these programs can be
scaled up in response to demand.
OVERALL STUDENT SATISFACTION: Overall student satisfaction should
be typical of what that institution strives for in its campus programs.
One measure for this is retention of students for courses and
persistence towards a degree. One challenge here for institutions is to
ensure that off-campus learners receive the same quality of student
services as provided for the campus population.
(Recent papers from Sloan-C members on each of these areas are in
the book series ON-LINE EDUCATION, v.1, 2 and 3, John Bourne, Ed.,
which are available from Amazon.com or directly from John Bourne,
[email protected])
All projects are different in the details of their pedagogical
approaches, delivery technology and student services, and so
understandably, results tend to vary. In particular, results for a
specific course depend greatly on the teaching ability, motivation and
experience of the faculty member. We know this is also the case for
classroom courses. Nevertheless, based on our considerable experience,
and based on experience with classes that are taught on campus and on
the internet by the same instructor giving the same examinations, on
balance, we do not find any significant variation in learning
effectiveness between classroom and on line courses taught in the
interactive mode.
THE CURRENT PICTURE
Although much is reported about new kinds of online learning
organizations, consortia, and for-profit educators, the fact is that
most for-credit, degree-oriented online learning today is provided by
traditional institutions which have a campus base, i.e., community
colleges, comprehensive 4-year colleges and many State universities.
Northern Virginia Community College (serving the Washington D.C.
metropolitan area), Rio Salado Community College in Phoenix, AZ., and
Bismarck State College in N.D. are examples of community colleges with
large and thriving online education programs. Among State universities,
leaders include University of Maryland (University College), State
University of New York, the University of Massachusetts (particularly
the Lowell campus), the University of Illinois, and the University of
Washington. The State systems in the mountain States have also
developed strong programs. In urban environments we see ``hybrid'' or
``blended'' courses appearing alongside entirely online courses. In a
hybrid course, a learner may only have to come to campus for an evening
class say, once a week instead of three times a week, doing the rest
online. In rural environments where learners are widely geographically
separated, fully online courses are preferred. It is quite clear
however, that online education equally well serves the needs of rural,
as well as urban learners.
We estimate that in the academic year just past (2001/2002), 3
million learners enrolled in online courses intended for the off-campus
population. This number does not include the much larger number of
enrollments in traditional campus courses which might incorporate some
kind of ``web-component''.
The for-profit education providers are still a small part of the
picture. They are growing quickly and some of them will become a
significant presence. University of Phoenix is the leader in this
group. A large number of courses and learning modules, for which I do
not have an estimate, are also provided through the broadcast model.
These are mainly of the non-credit variety and they are proprietary
(within a corporation for example) and many training companies make
these available to the public and to industrial firms.
WORK FORCE LEARNING
We believe online learning has very large significance for our
workforce. The workforce of tomorrow will have to be better trained,
and better able to access education, training and other knowledge
resources. The Internet provides the ideal mechanism for this access.
Some of the necessary courses, certifications, degrees and other kinds
of knowledge modules are available today, but not many and not enough.
Many more are needed.
A convenient way of conceptualizing workforce learning is to think
in terms of ``industries'', and to further inquire if industry-specific
learning resources are widely available online for access by workers in
that industry, or for those who seek skilled positions in that
industry. I would like to describe some Sloan projects that aim for
impact by industry.
In 1998, supported by a Sloan Foundation grant, the Council for
Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), convened a series of meetings
with representatives of the major telecommunications service providers
(due to mergers, the original six companies are now down to Verizon,
SBC, Qwest, and Citizens) and representatives of the unions for the
telecommunications industry (CWA and IBEW) to agree on a curriculum,
governance structure, and an education institution to provide an A.S.
degree for telephone network technician workers and those who wish to
enter the industry. These meetings were successful in their purpose. A
curriculum was agreed to and Pace University in New York was selected
to develop all courses, and to deliver them online and to be the degree
provider. A governance structure was also agreed to (the informal
industry/unions committee was re-constituted as NACTEL, the National
Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning, and NACTEL
oversees all aspects of the program, now in place). In this task,
NACTEL is assisted by CAEL and by the Sloan Foundation, which provided
initial project funding to Pace and CAEL. The first classes under the
NACTEL program were given in 1999 (see www.nactel.org). This program
has now enrolled several thousand so far, and has begun graduating a
number of these. In spite of the difficult circumstances of the
telecommunications industry, enrollments continue to grow. The NACTEL
experience has shown two other striking results: about 40 percent of
those enrolled are women, a surprise since women to not represent
anywhere near that number in the existing workforce for this position.
Comments gathered by program staff clearly indicate that women see this
as an opportunity to move to a higher paying position, often moving
away from dead-end office positions. Another striking result has been
the overall success rate of these learners: on average, we see about 90
percent course completion rates in a rigorous curriculum that includes
math, electric circuits etc. This result is a clear indicator of the
desire and motivation of this learner population, and of the quality
content and services provided by Pace.
More recently, Sloan funding has supported development of two other
industry-specific programs: one for the Electric Power Industry (EPCE
or Energy Providers Coalition for Education) and the other for
Healthcare (H-CAP or Healthcare Career Advancement Program). The
country's energy needs will require new power plants to be constructed
and the power distribution system to be upgraded. This will increase
the demand for skilled workers in that industry. The EPCE program, also
managed by CAEL and funded by Sloan, offers three Associates degrees
through Bismarck State College for workers in electric power (power
generation, distribution, and system management). The Healthcare
project initially focuses on education towards an R.N. and provides
opportunities for those in the industry to move up to better-paying
positions. Education is provided through a partnership between
University of Phoenix and a consortium of 2-year schools, which provide
the hands-on aspects of the nursing education and confer the Associates
degree. As with NACTEL, the governance of these projects is through
boards that comprise industry and labor representatives (IBEW in the
case of EPCE and SEIU in the case of H-CAP).
The industry programs described above are one example of the way
that online education will change educational institutions themselves.
Bismarck State College, at one time enrolled only local learners. Now
it counts among its students, electric power technicians in Florida,
Wyoming and Texas. It is in some ways, beginning to resemble a national
institution and with growing expertise in online education for electric
power workers, it could become a preeminent institution for education
in this segment. We should think of these efforts as only a beginning.
Industry-specific offerings are an important way to ensure workforce
learning, and offered in asynchronous online fashion, anytime,
anyplace, they are a solution to the need for more family-friendly ways
for workers to acquire education and training.
Before I leave the subject of online education for specific
segments, I should note that many government agencies are themselves
installing online programs for their personnel. A particularly good
example here is the U.S. Army's successful eArmyU program, which today
enrolls almost 30,000 enlisted personnel from 11 bases, and it is
growing quickly. Soldier students have a choice of courses and
certificate and degree programs from over 20 institutions listed in the
eArmyU catalog. This number too is growing.
As other, new government units are created, for example the
proposed Homeland Security Department, it seems clear that the
requirement to rapidly educate and train a large, geographically
dispersed workforce, will, at least in part, have to be met through
online methods.
POLICY RECOMMENDTIONS
Overall Recommendation: Our experience with the interactive model
of online learning shows that this way of teaching works, and it works
in many disciplines for many segments of our population. It enables
quality education to reach out to vast numbers of people that otherwise
would be denied education and training. The Government, whether in
tuition support, fellowships, or support of training should support
quality online learning as it does traditional classroom learning.
Quality, not mode of delivery should become the criterion for aid,
recognition and support.
Senator Enzi. Now, Mr. Mendenhall, from the Western
Governors University.
Mr. Mendenhall. I think that is working.
Senator Enzi, I appreciate the opportunity to testify as to
the value of distance learning. Let me begin by saying that
distance education is not for everyone. It is not for every
student or for every subject. Students must be self-disciplined
and self-motivated, and some subjects lend themselves better to
this mode of learning than others.
But for an increasingly large segment of our population,
distance learning is the only option for them to pursue an
ongoing education. For those who live in rural areas at a
distance from traditional education, distance learning
represents simply the only opportunity they have to pursue an
education.
We have also found that for those living close to
universities but working full-time, they very often cannot fit
the traditional class schedule into their work schedule, and,
again, distance learning becomes the only option for these
individuals.
As a result, distance learning is the fastest-growing
segment of higher education in the United States, and this is
being driven by at least three factors:
The first is the changing demographic of learners. Our
university system was created on the idea that education was a
one-time event that happened between ages 18 and 24 as a
transition from high school to the working world, and that
individuals would go to college, be trained for a career that
they would then work in for the rest of their working lives.
This is simply no longer the case. On average, a working adult
needs to be retrained and re-educated every 7 years today to
stay current in workforce skills. As a result, now more than
half of the students in higher education represent adults that
are working full-time and trying to increase their skills and
education.
The other driving force is the Internet, which now provides
the opportunity for a much richer distance learning experience
than what was available in the past. Distance learning is no
longer the old correspondence school with which you are
familiar that simply sent out print materials to be read and
exams to be mailed back, but has, as others have testified, a
rich interaction between faculty and between students. And, in
fact, there are many studies that suggest that that interaction
is actually richer over the Internet at a distance than occurs
in many classroom-based campuses.
There have been numerous studies that show that distance
learning is just as effective as classroom-based education. As
in classroom-based education, some distance learning is good
and some is bad. It is also true in the classroom. Some
teachers are good and some are not very good. But there is
nothing inherent in the mode of delivery that suggests a lower
quality or that distance learning should be discriminated
against in Federal financial aid policies or in other policies
and Government regulations.
I would just add here that there is still a tendency in
education to measure distance learning programs against
classroom counterparts. Even the accreditation agencies tend to
look at distance learning programs and ask if the functions are
the same as in the classroom, if the faculty has the same role,
if the students have the same role. I would suggest that when
you change mode of delivery, other things may change as well,
and that it would be more important not to look at how distance
learning parallels classroom education but, rather, are the
outcomes as effective as classroom education and to measure it
by the learning outcomes that come from distance learning as
opposed to the methodologies that go into the education.
In fact, at Western Governors University, we have changed
significantly the role of the faculty and the role of the
institution. And yet, as a competency-based institution, we
ensure through rigorous assessments that students have learned
those things that are required to graduate with a degree.
A great example of the value of distance learning is the
WGU Teachers College, which we created not to train high school
students who think they may want to be teachers someday. That
is the role of traditional universities. And one of the things
we found from high school students is that 40 percent of those
who graduate in education 3 years later are no longer teaching
in our schools because they have moved in a different
direction.
We instead are reaching out to the paraprofessionals
already in our schools, to the uncertified teachers in our
schools, which in urban and rural areas are as many as 40
percent of our total teaching population, and to current
teachers who need to upgrade their skills. These individuals
all work full-time and all have families and would not be able
to access traditional education and yet, through online
education, can enhance their skills and abilities. We know that
the most important factor in K-12 education is the quality of
the teacher, and we know that if we can improve that quality,
we will make a significant difference in K-12 education.
In conclusion, I would suggest four policy recommendations
for Federal policy.
The first would be to eliminate the 50-percent rule in
Federal financial aid, which basically restricts financial aid
to those institutions that are mostly campus-based, that is,
more than 50-percent campus-based, and specifically rules out
new institutions that do distance learning. I believe that new
institutions may be able to better perform distance learning
functions than existing institutions because they don't have
the infrastructure of the existing institutions.
Second, I would authorize the Distance Education Training
Council as an accrediting body for distance education, as those
that have the most experience in distance education. And our
experience with them is that they are as rigorous as any
accreditation we have gone through.
Finally, I would continue the demonstration program for
Federal financial aid that allows the Department of Education
to modify rules for distance learning institutions. And as part
of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, I would explicitly
suggest that Congress include distance education as an
important component of higher education in the United States
and not discriminate on the mode of learning but, rather, on
quality of learning.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mendenhall follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert W. Mendenhall
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee: I am pleased to be here
today to discuss with you the value of distance education as a key
component of our national higher education landscape. I wish to share
with you that distance education is the fastest growing sector of U.S.
higher education, and is an essential element in our national
competitiveness. Driving this expansion are three primary factors.
1. The changing demographics of students--the majority of students
are now adults working full time and providing for a family.
2. The pace of change--technological and otherwise--in the
workplace which requires ongoing adult education.
3. The advent of the Internet which provides powerful new ways to
deliver and mediate instruction at a distance.
It is important that the Congress recognize and support distance
education as a key component and growing proportion of U.S. higher
education. Numerous studies have shown that distance education is
equally effective as classroom instruction. In my testimony I recommend
that Congress end the current bias against distance learning in Federal
financial aid programs and encourage innovation and new models in
higher education.
Western Governors University (WGU), of which I am President, offers
competency-based degree programs nationally through online distance
education. We are a private, non-profit institution founded and
supported by governors of 19 western States to share distance education
resources and expand access to higher education. We have been funded in
part by Congress and the U.S. Department of Education, as well as 24
national corporate and foundation partners. WGU has from the beginning
been part of the demonstration program for Federal financial aid for
distance learning. WGU is accredited by DETC--the Distance Education
and Training Council--and has regional accreditation as a candidate
institution.
VALUE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
Distance education is by far the fastest growing component of U.S.
higher education. Over 2 million students are now enrolled in distance
education, up from approximately 700,000 students just four years ago.
Driving this transformation is the changing demographic of higher
education--more than half of those enrolled in higher education are
older working adults. No longer is the typical student an 18 to 25-
year-old, fresh out of high school, and needing a college education for
preparatory work skills and socialization into adult life. Rather,
today's student is an adult 25 to 50 years old, already established in
the world of work, with home and community responsibilities as well as
demands to stay current in his or her field of endeavor or re-career
into a new vocation of interest. Driving forces such as technological
change and globalization exacerbate this adult educational imperative.
These working adult students simply cannot attend traditional higher
education that is place-bound, time-restricted, and invests too heavily
in a campus life that is removed from their needs. The facilities and
organizations built for traditional students simply don't fit--such
things as dormitories, student unions, sports complexes, cafeterias,
and museums. Adult students enroll voluntarily and have a clear focus
on the ends they wish to achieve; they are more experienced, motivated,
and task-oriented than their younger counterparts. Although traditional
institutions of higher education are trying to meet the needs of this
new student population, their design is still upon the conventional
undergraduate populations coming from high school. This can be seen in
the preponderance of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. instruction and administrative
services, the requirement of in-person attendance, and their use of
technology to support a classroom-based approach.
Increasingly these adult students turn to distance education as an
important, viable alternative. Foremost, distance education provides
instruction ``24 hour by 7 days a week'' that is not time- or place-
bound. Students can access their courses from home or work when studies
are convenient to them, without having to commute miles away to a
campus classroom with a fixed schedule that may not meet their own. One
student commented: ``I truly doubt it would even be possible for me to
be pursuing another degree while [working] if it wasn't for the
flexibility and availability of the WGU program.'' Another one said:
``I would have to drive to campus, park, walk to class, spend time in
class and then do my studies . . . twice or three times a week after
[working]. Distance education . . . took out all of the tedium, solved
the travel requirements, and enabled me to tailor the specific time
schedule to my personal needs. I did a significant amount of my study
and writing in the midnight hours because those were the most
convenient to me.'' These adult students are familiar with a workplace
that heavily relies on telecommunications and the information
technology of the Internet. As such, they have no difficulty using
these technologies in pursuit of a distance degree. The demand for
distance learning will continue to grow, and the students attracted to
the method are older, working, and in need of Federal assistance to
help pay for their education.
Distance education is particularly beneficial to adults living in
rural areas, locations that are remote from college campuses. They need
a viable option to upgrade their skills to continue employment in these
communities; without distance learning options, getting a higher
education would not be possible. One of our students commented: ``I am
a high school teacher working in a school with a student body of 400
students in grades 9-12 located in a semi-rural community . . . The
nearest college is located 55 miles away--one hour travel time away.
The reason I have not been able to obtain a graduate degree until now
is due to time constraints. Colleges don't like to offer classes in a
time frame I could attend--when children are in bed and the day's work
has been completed. About 2\1/2\ years ago I heard about [WGU's
distance program]; this meant that I could study and complete projects/
assignments when I have the time.'' Through online distance education
these students are able to stay gainfully employed and engaged in the
economic and social development of these small communities while still
being able to advance their expertise through a college degree. Taking
courses via the Internet allows them to upgrade their technology
skills, ensuring that rural America is not left behind with the
expansion of the information superhighway.
ENCOURAGING INNOVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Distance education is a new force in a country whose economy
demands more knowledge workers. At no period in our country's history
has there been the same imperative to encourage innovation, initiative,
and responsiveness in higher education. The workplace demands a greater
responsiveness from higher education to meet its needs for
technologically skilled and adaptable employees who can work in
distance collaborations with their peers in other States and nations
through telecommunications in the competitive global economy. However,
traditional modes of education are not equipped to create these kinds
of workers, simply because they don't provide instruction that fits
this model.
Increasingly higher education requires new types of organizations
dedicated to innovation and access, such as the dozens of distance
education institutions that have sprung up in the past decade. These
virtual institutions propose new models of education that fit the needs
of these adult students. The faculty role has changed from the ``sage
on the stage'' to that of mentor who guides and facilitates
individualized learning. Distance courses are frequently provided with
an open start date (i.e., students can begin their studies throughout
the year), and open exit (i.e., they can move through the course at
their own pace, finishing early if they have met all the requirements).
Many scholars posit that distance education provides important
advantages over the traditional classroom. Obviously access is high on
the list--providing 24 by 7 access to online courses wherever the
Internet is available--a delivery mode that is neither time nor place
bound. Further, distance education provides access to a wealth of Web-
based information resources, as well as full-text articles and book
services of a campus-free virtual library. Online instruction is far
different than the passive correspondence education of the past; there
are more frequent and in-depth interactions with peers and the
instructor made possible through web-based communications, threaded
discussions, and ``live'' technology-mediated conversations.
Telecommunications can provide immediate feedback and responsive
turnaround of assignments and assessments. Usually distance education
courses have undergone a more systematic design and development than
their classroom counterparts. The educational experience is enhanced by
the multi-media of streamed audio and video in addition to text, and
these courses are able to incorporate computer-based examinations in
ways not possible without such technology. A student commented: ``My
online instructors have provided not only adequate textbook materials,
but they also offer Internet links, online video lectures, and
interactive discussions. I can have immediate feedback from fellow
students as well as timely feedback from my professors. Grades are
available for viewing [online] so students know exactly where they
stand.'' Finally, the research on satisfaction and performance finds
that distance education is equal to or exceeds that of traditional
higher education instruction.
AN EXAMPLE OF THE NEED FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION
A concrete example of the importance of distance education is found
in teacher education. WGU has created an online Teachers College to
address the critical shortage in the U.S. for two million new qualified
K-12 teachers in the next 10 years, as well as the need to upgrade the
education of current teachers. It is now clear that new ways must be
found to educate and qualify new teachers effectively and efficiently.
WGU has been funded by the Department of Education to develop online
competency-based degrees and teacher certification programs.
WGU's Teachers College provides a unique opportunity for
paraprofessionals and uncertified teachers currently in schools to
demonstrate their competencies and gain teaching credentials. There are
half a million paraprofessionals currently in schools and perhaps an
equal number of uncertified teachers. In addition, only 42 percent of
the current three million teachers in our schools currently have
master's degrees, and the Teachers College will give many of these
individuals an opportunity for further education and higher pay. The
national impact will be a higher level of teaching proficiency in our
K-12 schools, which is the single most important determinant of
educational quality. While traditional schools of education may fill
much of the need for new teachers, WGU's national program will: (1)
reach valuable adult workers, including a significant number of
minorities, who otherwise will be left outside the system, and (2)
reach existing teachers at times and places convenient to them to
upgrade their skills and earning potential.
Currently, there are three significant groups of working adults
that can immediately begin to meet the shortage of teachers, given a
flexible and accessible way to obtain the required education
credentials. These are: (1) paraprofessionals who currently assist
classroom teachers; (2) uncertified teachers who are provisionally
hired; and (3) professionals from other fields who want to enter the
teaching profession. I will briefly explain the situations of each of
these groups and the appeal of distance education through WGU.
The first group consists of 500,000 paraprofessionals currently
working in schools that have classroom experience and are already
dedicated to K-12 education. The best place to fill the need for new
teachers is not by educating brand new teachers. Nearly one half of the
graduates of our schools of education are not teaching 3 years later,
either because the classroom was not what they expected or because they
were offered better jobs outside the classroom. These
paraprofessionals, culturally diverse and eager for advancement, are
seeking careers in our schools and inherently have many of the
competencies they need to become teachers. But for a variety of
reasons--including time, accessibility, and the need to maintain a
full-time job--they have not been able to finish their degree. WGU's
educational model gives these individuals the opportunity to gain the
competencies they are lacking to become teachers. Extending this
educational opportunity to paraprofessionals will facilitate an
increase in the population of minority teachers--currently under-
represented in the teaching community--to provide important role models
for minority students in the American school system.
The second group includes all of the current uncertified teachers
that are currently teaching in grades K-12. Because of a national
shortage of certified teachers, school districts are hiring uncertified
personnel under emergency certification. In some urban districts and in
rural areas, as many as 40 percent of all teachers lack certification,
amounting to hundreds of thousands of teachers nationally. If these
teachers do not certify within 2 years (in most cases), they will be
let go, even though new uncertified teachers will take their place.
There are few programs in place to allow these individuals to gain the
necessary education and certification while teaching.
The third group consists of thousands of retired business and
military personnel who are ready to give back to society by teaching in
our schools, but who do not want--or need--to go back to school for 4
years to make this vital contribution. Many of these second-career
individuals already have significant competencies in key areas like
math, science, and technology, and most provide excellent role models
of success for students. In recognition of this potential, the Federal
Government has started a multimillion-dollar ``Troops to Teachers''
program to encourage retired military personnel to teach in urban
school districts. WGU competency-based degrees and certificates offer a
unique opportunity to qualify these individuals as teachers while
allowing them to gain the competencies they lack in an efficient way.
These programs at WGU are funded by the U.S. Department of
Education. The University and its degrees are accredited by both DETC
and regional accreditation. States have their own separate approval
process to recognize teacher certification and endorsements. With all
of these safeguards on quality, it would be wrong to exclude qualified
individuals in these programs from Federal financial aid simply because
the programs are delivered at a distance.
RECOMMENDATION: PROVIDE DISTANCE EDUCATION WITH FEDERAL FINANCIAL AID
ON AN EQUAL BASIS WITH TRADITIONAL EDUCATION
The 1992 Higher Education Act in effect put a ban on the use of
Title IV student aid for distance education institutions. This was in
reaction to the student loan default scandals of the 1980's, but it can
be argued that in today's world we have effectively thrown out the baby
with the bath water. Today, the growth in distance education is in
degree granting institutions rather than the vocational schools that
created the problems of the 1980's. Academic degree programs, whether
campus-based or at a distance, have certain inherent quality controls,
including accreditation, admissions screening, prior academic
attainment, tighter academic standards, and high level of faculty
involvement in teaching. New distance education programs, spawned by
the power of computers and telecommunications, particularly the
Internet, have been created with quality equal to that of campus-based
institutions. The ban on Federal financial aid has unfairly penalized
legitimate accredited distance education institutions and colleges that
have only recently entered the distance learning field. Federal funding
and personal tax incentives for education currently depend on which
mode of education a student uses rather than the academic quality of
the learning involved. Recent proposed changes to the fifty percent
rule don't go far enough as they limit Federal financial aid for
distance learning institutions that are not already part of Title IV.
Limiting providers of distance education to schools already
participating in Title IV discourages innovation and the new models of
higher education based around the new paradigms of learning.
There are already sufficient safeguards to mitigate the potential
for student aid fraud and abuse without disenfranchising an entire
class of institutions and hundreds of thousands of deserving students.
Correspondence schools were singled out in 1992 as major perpetrators
of fraud, but such problems were not unique to that segment.
Congressional ``fixes'' such as requiring completion and placement
percentages and forbidding high defaults have reduced problems with
Federal financial aid, and will serve the same purpose if applied to
distance education. In fact, student loan defaults are now at historic
lows, even while usage of aid is at all time highs. It is time for
Congress to act for all of the students and potential students in
distance education.
The following are submitted as recommendations for Federal policy
relating to distance education:
1. Eliminate the 50 percent rule in Federal financial aid, which
basically restricts Federal financial aid for distance learning to
institutions that are mostly campus-based. Thus new institutions formed
specifically around distance learning models are locked out of being
able to offer Federal financial aid. This includes many fine accredited
institutions.
2. Authorize the DETC--Distance Education Training Council--as a
Title IV accreditor. DETC is a rigorous, recognized accreditation
agency, with the most experience in distance education, and could play
a significant role in assuring quality in distance education programs.
3. Continue the demonstration program for Federal financial aid.
The demonstration program is showing effectively that the Department of
Education can adapt its rules and regulations to allow distance
education programs, including very innovative programs such as WGU's
competency-based degrees, to participate in Federal financial aid.
4. As a follow-on to the demonstration project, with the Higher
Education Reauthorization act in 2 years, explicitly provide for the
participation of distance education students and institutions, and give
the Department of Education the ability to adapt its rules and
regulations as needed to allow for innovation in higher education.
APPENDIX: WGU STUDENT TESTIMONIALS OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
I am a student with Western Governors University. I started my
masters program in education in February of 2001. I am now half way
through with the program. I chose WGU because of the freedom of doing
the work on my own time and at my own pace. In the past, I had started
masters programs twice through regular universities and found the class
schedules impossible to fit into my schedule. This included night
classes. It would have taken me three to 4 years to finish either
program. I was almost going to give up working towards my educational
goals when I discovered WGU. The work is demanding, but I am able to
fit it into my spare hours and I am encouraged by my progress.
With the demands of our society on education, it only makes sense
to have available the opportunity to advance through distance learning.
These programs may not be for everyone, but they have a place in our
world. I know there are others with an extremely busy life that need to
have a program that fits in today's high pressured life style. I would
recommend this program to anyone needing to work at an independent
rate.
Dennis W. Nalder
Speaking as an administrator for a community college district, I
feel as though WGU is accomplishing something far beyond the obvious.
The ability to access curriculum and work with colleagues from across
the country in the pursuit of an advanced degree is a far more time
efficient and productive process than traditional classroom
environments are able to offer for professionals in the field. In our
personal on-line education programs, we encounter, first hand, the
experiences we will eventually be developing for our own students. The
perspective gained through our own direct experiences in programs such
as those at WGU will better prepare those of us in higher education to
meet the challenges of education in the future.
Wesley H. Wingfield
I am a Western Governors University distance-learning student. I am
also a tenured secondary science teacher working on my Masters degree
through this wonderful networked university. I truly doubt it would
even be possible for me to be pursuing another degree while teaching if
it wasn't for the flexibility and availability of the Western Governors
program.
My workweek usually entails a ten-hour day with grading and lesson
planning at home. This is not very conducive to extracurricular
studying, or personal goal attainment. I am becoming more convinced all
the time that technology is the answer to limited resources and time
that adult learners face. I am even coming to suspect that online
learning could be an answer for adolescent learners who are absent,
non-conventional learners, or home-schooled.
I have attended college and university courses for a total of
nearly 8 years. I can honestly say I feel the level of personal
instruction is greater via e-mail and online guidance than I ever
received in an impersonal classroom setting.
As for the quality of instruction, my online instructors have
provided not only adequate textbook materials, but they also offer
Internet links, online video lectures, and interactive discussions. I
can have immediate feedback from fellow students as well as timely
feedback from my professors. Grades are available for viewing so
students know exactly where they stand, and revisions on papers is
offered by most instructors because they have the time to read them
electronically.
I appreciate your efforts to support distance-learning initiatives.
If our country is going to continue to be a leader in producing
critical thinkers with strong communication and technological skills,
then education must continue to develop and expand online programs like
Western Governors University.
Penny L. Hood
There are many advantages to distance learning for the
professional. I appreciate not having to drive to an institution of
learning, find parking, take the time to walk to class, sit in class,
then repeat the transportation process home. Besides this, I am able to
``take my classes'' during whichever part of the day works best for me.
I have spent many hours at my computer doing coursework between 2AM and
6AM. I have never found professors' office hours to be instantaneous,
but with electronic mail, I have received responses from my course
professors (as well as my mentor) within twenty-four hours of sending
an electronic question. Sometimes I have even been on a chat line with
my professor(s), and this has been unbelievably helpful.
This method of pursuing a higher education degree is the only way I
would have been able to accomplish the goal of graduate degrees, and I
am very grateful for Western Governors University.
Kathryn Schlendorf
It has always been my desire to complete a Master's Degree Program.
For various reasons, I have been unable to obtain my advanced degree. I
have taken many graduate level courses delivered in many different
formats while living in Montana, Colorado, and now Wyoming. When I
learned about WGU, I realized that I would now be able to complete a
Master's Degree. The convenience of learning at home via the Internet
and access to excellent resources without leaving my home, are
certainly strengths. With this format, I have also been able to
increase my skills and abilities to utilize technology, which I feel is
a very beneficial skill regardless of a person's career. WGU has opened
up doors for me that I would not have been able to access without an
extreme inconvenience for my family, my career, and myself. I would not
be considering an advance degree at this time if it weren't for Western
Governors University.
Connie Keogh
I am a high school teacher working in a school with a student body
population of 400 students in grades 9-12 located in a semi-rural
community. I teach five classes each day on a six period schedule. Most
of the time, I have five different classes, which means five different
preps daily. I also advise two student organizations, Future Business
Leaders of America and National Honor Society.
I am also a mother with three children ages 5 (Kindergarten), 7
(2nd Grade), and 10 (6th Grade). In order to provide parental care for
our children, my husband works nights and cares for the children during
the day. Our youngest child is now in Kindergarten for a half-day. I am
the caregiver in the evenings.
I have been teaching for 15 years. I am now at a point in my career
where I need to earn a graduate to move up on my district's salary
schedule. If I don't get the degree, I will stay at the same level for
the rest of my teaching career with only salary increases if the salary
schedule is adjusted for cost of living increases.
The nearest college is located 55 miles away--one hour travel time
away. The reason I have not been able to obtain a graduate degree until
now is due to time constraints. Colleges don't like to offer classes in
a time frame I could attend--when the children are in bed and the day's
work has been completed. About 2\1/2\ years ago I heard about a program
at a place called Western Governors University, that was by distance
learning. This meant that I could study and complete projects/
assignments when I have the time.
Since my study time is flexible and my progress through the program
is totally geared to meet my schedule, I have been able to meet other
life challenges and still continue with my studies. I am now looking
forward to obtaining a master's degree in Learning and Technology
through WGU. This has been somewhat harder than simply attending a
class and completing the assignments. I feel that I am learning a great
deal more than I would in a traditional program. I know that I would
not have been able to make this much progress toward my graduate degree
if it were not for WGU.
Mineta Wilde
I am writing this letter to express appreciation to all the people
responsible for making my graduation from Western Governors University
in September a reality.
Four years ago I began looking into masters' degree programs in
educational technology. At the time I was teaching sixth grade, raising
a family, and teaching technology professional development classes to
supplement our family income. This left me very little time for
scheduling classes to each a master's degree. Online distance learning
was just starting to be an option, and I remember thinking at the time,
``If only I could find a program that would allow me to stay home and
earn my degree through the Internet.'' I decided to put my masters on
hold for a few years until my children were older, and I could save
money for tuition. However, three months later I received a letter
inviting me to apply for a master's degree in ``Learning and
Technology'' through WGU.
Karren Perry
I am starting my fifth year as a public educator in rural Utah. I
am very busy with my teaching and coaching, not to mention my family
and other responsibilities. Also, as an educator, funding a Master's
degree on my own would really have presented many problems financially
for my family. Furthermore, I do not live near a university where I
could pursue my Master's degree.
Eric Mortensen
Since enrolling at WGU, I have learned to appreciate the value of
an online education. While working toward my master's degree in
Instructional Technology, I have been able to work full-time, as well
as fulfill my family and civic responsibilities. A traditional
education would not allow that freedom.
Lynn Sorensen
I am sitting in a very familiar place as I type this letter . . .
my computer den. This tiny, cluttered room is where I have diligently
labored over the past 3 years on my Masters of Learning and Technology
degree from Western Governors University. Sometimes I have felt lonely
and isolated, sometimes overwhelmed and weary. But I have always always
felt grateful--grateful for the chance to pursue an advanced degree
that will benefit my personal life and enrich the students who share my
professional life.
As I near the proverbial finish line with only my Capstone Project
to fine tune and an oral defense to prepare, I look back on what I have
accomplished. I have learned about the different hardware and software
options available to examine and procure for my classroom; I have
learned how to research in a scholarly and systematic manner those
topics pertinent to education today; I have developed a training
program to teach my student newspaper editors the ins and outs of
desktop publishing and its use in the larger context of an Internet-
connected journalism lab, including such issues as privacy, security,
and fair use policies for materials found on the Web; I have discovered
the importance of careful curriculum planning and evaluation and how to
integrate technology in its myriad of forms into my teaching style,
strategy, and media; in short, I have become a better teacher.
Arna L. Clark
My previous university experience included training at Brigham
Young University and at the University of Grenoble, France, as an
undergraduate, as well as graduate studies at the University of New
Mexico in Albuquerque, NM. With the commitments that now faced me, I
had postponed any further graduate work because of the time
requirements. I would have to drive to a campus, park, walk to class,
spend time in class and then do my studies independently. This would be
necessary twice or three times a week after teaching school, and I did
not see how I could take care of my family and pursue a Masters degree
in the traditional setting.
Distance learning, particularly ``Western Governor's style,'' took
out all the tedium, solved the travel requirements, and enabled me to
tailor the specific time schedule to my personal needs. I did a
significant amount of my study and writing in the midnight hours
because those were the most convenient for me. It was wonderful. I
could get online at any hour. I could send e-mail questions to the chat
line of students or to any of my professors at any time, and they would
answer whenever it was convenient for them. Often I received answers
within a few hours. I was awed by how distance learning expedited the
communication process. In fact, as I compare my educational experience
at WGU with the other school I attended, I had never experienced such
support.
Kathy Schlendorf
Without the flexibility offered by Western Governors University, it
would not be possible for me to earn my masters degree. I work full
time and then some at a professional job, have two preschool aged
children and manage a household. My new career requires I earn a
masters in the next few years. I had no idea how I would manage that
until I learned about Western Governors University.
The beauty of the program lies in its flexibility. I work on my
degree when I can. For me, it's an ideal situation.
Denise Dowling
The ability to work on degrees and obtain credit via distance
learning programs fills a vital niche in the college world. In a
society where many people work long hours and spend much of their time
juggling work commitments and family, distance learning allows
individuals a chance to earn a degree when the standard path to a
college education fails them.
I am one of those people that have been helped by distance learning
programs and in particular Western Governors University. My job
requires that I work odd hours at random times. Many days start at
seven in the morning, come with a couple of hours off in the afternoon
and finish with a stint of teaching until 9 at night. With such a
varied schedule, I would never be able to attend normally structured
classes. Because I am also supporting a family, including a wife who is
attending a local college, quitting work or cutting back is not an
option. Western Governors University's competency based degree program
has finally allowed me to work towards a degree. After 3 years of
working at my pace with the time I have available, I will at last have
my 2 year degree done and will start working towards my bachelors. My
dream of getting a college degree will be fulfilled because of distance
learn programs like WGU's.
I cannot stress enough how important distance learning
opportunities are to working people in the United States. It is of the
utmost importance that these programs continue to get the support and
funding needed to provide college opportunities to those individuals
who can't attend a normal two or four year institution.
Greg Marshall
Being from Cokeville, WY my opportunities for pursuing a master
degree without relocating to a college town was not an option. WGU has
enabled me to pursue one of my life goals. WGU's program is also
allowing me to expand my career choices and earn a higher income in my
chosen field of education. As a father of a young and growing family of
three sons, these things are important and add security for my family.
Brian Toomer
I would like to reassure you of the positive experience that WGU
has provided for me.
All of my classes provided instruction where work was completed and
transferred via the Internet. At times, I could interact with on-line
chat classes where we would discuss, and plan assignments with other
students around the State and country. Our classes were not restricted
to specific time schedules. Many of the interactions with my classmates
occurred at night due to most of us having teaching positions during
the day.
I have to say this program gave me the opportunity to accomplish
this personal goal. I could not have done so without the opportunity to
still teach for an income, but it also has allowed me to complete my
work at times when my family was not at home or my children were
asleep.
This program may not be for everyone. Students need to be self-
motivated and ready to learn. The program was by no means easy but I
feel I have learned a great deal from this experience and accomplished
a great amount.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much for your testimony today,
and I would mention that your complete testimony will be part
of the record, and I have some questions that I am going to ask
here in a moment, which will also be part of the record. I
probably won't have time to ask all of them, so I will be
submitting some of them in writing, as will other members of
the committee, because this is our opportunity to build a
record for when we do the Higher Education reauthorization.
I am just so pleased with the comments that you have had.
You have gone into some of the very basic things that we will
have to explain again and again, I am sure, as we go through
the process. But you have given me some good clues on how to do
that.
The Internet has definitely changed our lives. I think it
has changed the way that kids have to be taught. I have a
daughter that was a 7th-grade English teacher in Gillette,
Wyoming, for a long time, and that involves doing research
assignments. And she has found that that had to change because
it is so much easier to do research now.
One of the things we want to do is encourage that easier
research, but make students more efficient at it and make sure
that the data that they are getting is very good.
She is now the principal at Chugwater School, which is K-
12, 126 students. It is one of those rural schools, and the
kids receive German by Internet there. So they are getting some
of the instruction and have an opportunity even to take some
college courses while they are in high school.
So there is some new potential out there that some of us
who have been around a while can't quite envision. I would add
that I am the one that is trying to get computers on the floor
of the Senate, and I have run into quite a bit of resistance.
On September 11th, we had a little communication problem and
found out that the Internet was the only way they could keep
track of us. So we have all been issued BlackBerrys now, which
I point out to them is a computer that works on wireless, and
have asked for them to revise the rule again. They have assured
me the next time the Rules Committee meets, that will be first
on the agenda. That assured me that the Rules Committee is not
meeting again this year.
[Laughter.]
But I have a real appreciation for the distance learning.
Wyoming is distance. We have miles and miles of miles and
miles. Our towns are spread out, and they are relatively small.
But there are some tremendous opportunities, and I have begun
to recognize some of those opportunities because my wife
travels back and forth with me. She is out here when I am out
here, and in Wyoming traveling when I am out there almost every
weekend. And she wanted to get a master's degree, and she did
that by distance learning. She could get her courses sometimes
when we were in an airport. Usually, she was able to do the
planning so she was here or there. But I got to see some of the
value of being able to utilize distance education--and also
some of the disadvantages. She didn't have the social
atmosphere that you have if you go to a college. But she was
able to get the education and the degree. It gave her the
flexibility that she would not have had otherwise.
I have been pleased to sponsor S. 1445, which is the
Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001. It is important
legislation which is based on the findings of the bipartisan
Web-based Education Committee that I and a number of other
Congressmen serve on. And it will accomplish the critical goal
of giving more students the opportunity to pursue postsecondary
education by expanding their access to financial aid for
students who choose to further their education through distance
learning. And I am pleased that the University of Wyoming--that
is our only 4-year institution in Wyoming, public or private--
is making use of it and experiencing record-breaking
enrollments in their distance learning.
We have a State that is 98,000 square miles, and as I
mentioned, the towns are a long ways apart. So it is my hope
that Congress will modernize the Higher Education Act so that
the distance education programs like the University of
Wyoming's and the Western Governors University's will be able
to expand even further to serve more interested students. And I
know that most of those are adults and nontraditional. So this
hearing has helped to bring out a lot of that. You have given
some excellent testimony. I do want to ask a few questions.
Ms. Ashby, on page 10 of your written testimony, you State
that financial aid is not as great a concern for students who
take distance education courses as it is for other students.
Could you expand on that a little bit or clarify it a little
bit for me?
Ms. Ashby. Yes, let me clarify. We did not mean that
financial aid was not as important. What we found is that
distance education students have applied for and are receiving
it to a lesser extent than other students. But we suspect that
that might be for a number of reasons, including the fact that,
as you just said, most distance education students are
nontraditional students. They are older than other college
students. They are part-time students and full-time workers.
Many are married. So it might very well be that they have their
own resources and don't need financial aid. If they are part-
time students, it is costing them less than it would cost a
full-time student to go to school.
We have not been able to look into this issue to this
extent, but these are speculations given what we know about the
nature of the distance education learner.
Senator Enzi. Your statistics show that distance education
students apply for financial aid at a lower rate than other
students. Is it possible that fewer distance education students
apply for that because they know that they are not eligible to
receive it? Is that knowledge among them?
Ms. Ashby. Well, actually, distance education students are
eligible to receive financial aid as long as they are attending
an institution that is eligible. Other than the reasons I gave
you earlier, the nontraditional student versus the traditional
student, I really can't speculate further as to why that is.
Senator Enzi. Well, you mentioned the 50-percent rule, so
they would know they are not eligible from that in some
instances.
Ms. Ashby. If they were attending a school--right, if they
were attending a school that had more than 50 percent of its
courses or 50 percent of its students in distance education,
they would know that. I presume they would know that.
Senator Enzi. OK. Do you have any idea what percentage of
the students would be eligible then for financial aid? They are
not applying for it, but how many would be eligible?
Ms. Ashby. I don't know.
Senator Enzi. Mr. Mayadas, in your written testimony, you
talk about five elements that should be used to ensure quality
distance education. Most of these elements link distance
program performance with that of on-campus instruction. Do you
have any ideas on ways that a distance-only institution can
ensure quality?
Mr. Mayadas. Yes, I think it is much easier if you have a
campus base, of course, and even some of the fast-growing for-
profits like University of Phoenix have started that way. And
they still are mainly a classroom-based institution with a new
online version.
If you are an entirely online institution, then one way to
evaluate quality is to compare that institution with some other
known institution that is approximately equivalent in its goals
that may have a campus base. So that is the kind of comparison
that could be made between entirely online institutions.
Perhaps they could be asked which institutions do you compare
yourselves to, and so that is one way to do it. There may be
other ways as well.
Our five elements of quality I think would be pretty easy
to apply to an entirely online institution. For example, we
think if you are going to spend all this money on computers and
so forth, you should be expanding access over and above what
would have been possible with just correspondence and the older
methods. I think an institution should be able to think of
their program in that way and describe how they are doing that.
Learning effectiveness simply says that they have got to be
learning what you are teaching them, and you could do that by
comparison with another institution.
So I think in each of these we could rationalize a sensible
approach to quality for an entirely online institution.
Senator Enzi. Certainly a lot of information available out
there. I know when I was going to college, I went to the George
Washington University here in Washington, D.C., and one of the
exercises they used to have us do is go up to the Library of
Congress, pick a subject, and then, you know, do a bibliography
on everything that was available there. And it was usually
pretty impressive the number of books that were available, and
it helped us to shorten our--to limit our topic a bit more.
Today, kids would just need reams of paper to do that same
thing in a few minutes. So we have changed.
You talk about two distinct forms of online learning: the
broadcast and the interactive. And one of the characteristics
of the interactive model which you believe provides higher-
quality instruction is that the course begins and ends on a
particular day. In your opinion, is it possible to have quality
interactive online programs that are self-paced, or is that a
conflict of terms?
Mr. Mayadas. Yes, we started with the idea that if you had
a cohort or a class and they began and ended on the same day,
they would get to know each other; they would feel comfortable
asking questions. They would interact much the way that we know
that classmates interact on campuses and have for many years.
If it is entirely self-paced--and we do have a few where it
is anytime enrollment and when you complete the work it is
done. And I think in some fields that works, and that certainly
works for training. For for-credit education, it is just not
used as much, and I think most institutions prefer to start 1
day and end on a specific day because of the sort of reasons I
have given, which is you kind of build a certain camaraderie.
You seek help from your fellow students and so on. It is easier
to do that when you know who they are.
And interactivity, I think Bob Mendenhall may have
mentioned this. Certainly we have found that interactivity with
the instructor and with other students always ranks way at the
top on student satisfaction surveys. It is the one thing they
really value.
Senator Enzi. Not to mention that we all kind of operate on
deadlines, right?
Mr. Mayadas. That is right. Exactly.
Senator Enzi. You mentioned in your testimony the Army's
program that allows members of the armed forces to continue
their education while serving the country. Can you tell me a
little bit more about that program?
Mr. Mayadas. Yes, that program at this point consists of a
consortium of schools, about somewhat more than 20, and it is
due to be expanded. They haven't got the new list yet, but
there will be a new number. I think it will exceed 30. A
soldier can sign up for a program from any one of those
institutions, and if the soldier is transferred, there is no
problem. You continue to take your classes.
The Army provides an attractive package for the soldier, a
portable computer and an Internet connection, but requires
progress toward a degree at a certain rate; otherwise, you have
to pay for that stuff. So it provides a lot of incentive to
finish your work.
That program has over 30,000 enlisted personnel enrolled
right now, and it is doing remarkably well. Considering the
unusual circumstances that enlisted personnel can end up in,
their completion rates are amazingly good.
Senator Enzi. That probably has to do somewhat with that
incentive of having to pay for it if they don't progress.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Mayadas. I think it does. It really does.
Senator Enzi. That is good to keep in mind, too.
Mr. Shank, you mentioned that online learning may be a more
effective tool for adult students. Can you expand on that and
tell us why it can be so beneficial for the nontraditional
students?
Mr. Shank. Yes, Senator Enzi. If you would indulge me, I
would also like to make a couple comments on the exchange that
you had with Mr. Mayadas about how an online school, purely
online, measures quality, which I think is very important to
the issues here. And, again, I will talk about our
instructional model that we have developed at Capella
University which is based entirely on a model of adult
learning, and adults are different. They are very different
than the traditional student who is able to be on campus,
devote the individual's entire life to the educational
experience, have a relatively leisurely period of time.
What we know about adults is they learn most effectively if
the learning can be active, if they can be actively engaged in
the instruction as a peer, not a more traditional educational
model where the faculty individual pretty much is the fount of
information and the information is a one-way flow.
It is also important that adults are able to interact with
the faculty and interact with other peers engaged in similar
life circumstances and work circumstances which enrich their
particular interest at the moment, and they can take that work
and they can apply it to what is relevant to them right now.
That is how you get good learning.
We know that a whole lot of learning going on in the
workplace is not producing the desired results because this
episodic approach to learning is not effective. Online
education is very effective in that respect.
In terms of measuring, as a purely distance institution,
what we are doing is we are adopting a totally outcomes-based
philosophy, and we are embedding in every course, in all of our
programs, a specific set of learning outcomes. Those may be
knowledge outcomes. They may be academic skills such as
computer usage, research skills, etc. They are also doing
skills.
We have a philosophy that if we can describe this, we can
measure this, and we can demonstrate whether or not we are
meeting our stated learning outcomes; and if we are not, why
not; and then the faculty is expected to engage in engage in
processes of how we improve learning outcomes.
Senator Enzi. You mentioned that adult students are better
if there is some interaction. Can you explain that a little
bit? We are not talking about programmed learning, are we?
Mr. Shank. We are not talking about programmed learning. I
would echo 100 percent the indicators of quality that Mr.
Mayadas has communicated. By interaction--again, I will talk
about our model. Our model is that on a weekly basis there are
required participations in the class, learner-to-faculty,
learner-to-learner. No one can sit in the back of the class and
just listen and observe. It is only by active participation--
all the research shows--that adults learn and retain
effectively. And that is what I mean by active participation.
If you are going to be a Web designer, build a website.
Don't read about building a website. Build a website and have
people criticize it.
Senator Enzi. I know from my wife's courses, too, that they
had the ability to talk back and forth while they were in
class.
Now, you mentioned in your testimony that 55 percent of the
Capella University students receive Federal financial aid. What
will happen to these students if Federal financial aid laws are
not amended or the demonstration program is not renewed?
Mr. Shank. In the case of our university, we are a fully
online university. These students would not be able to
participate in Federal financial aid.
Again, if I could make one other comment about the
significance of this, I stated that our studies indicate there
are 120,000 students studying online now. And while traditional
campus-based universities are providing online programs, I
would very strongly assert that probably the majority, more
than a majority of those students are studying at schools like
Western Governors, our school, or other schools which are
either purely online or will soon be more than 50 percent
online. So for the online degree-seeking population, the 50-
percent rule is very important.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Mr. Mendenhall, I appreciated your comment about or the
explanation of how correspondence courses are different than
the online courses. That was very helpful.
Now, I have heard detractors claim that distance education
isolates students and provides limited opportunities for
meaningful interaction. Do you feel this is true?
Mr. Mendenhall. I think it is true in some cases. It is
probably true on-campus in some cases, too, where, you know, in
your undergraduate courses you go to an auditorium with 200
students and get lectured to by a faculty member who has an
hour of office hours during the week.
In both cases, it doesn't need to be true. I think in
particular the advent of the Internet into distance learning
has provided us the opportunity to establish very rich
interactions, as both Mr. Shank and Mr. Mayadas have testified.
We do not have students start and end at the same point at
Western Governors University. It is start when they are ready
and finish as they can. Nevertheless, every student is part of
at least one learning community, mixed with students either in
the same subject or from the same profession or from the same
State, and several are in multiple learning communities. And
they interact with other students via throughout discussion
groups, live chat sessions. They exchange phone numbers and e-
mails. Similarly, we have faculty members who are not simply
teaching a course but are mentoring students through their
entire program, and so they have access to a faculty member
essentially 24/7. Obviously, faculty may not respond for 24
hours to a particular e-mail, but fairly fast response from
faculty.
And we have had a number of students--I believe some of the
quotes are included in my written testimony--who have suggested
that the found the interaction richer and more meaningful to
them than other campus-based programs that they have attended.
So I think it is dependent on the design of the program,
but certainly we have the capability now to have rich
interaction and collaboration in distance learning.
Senator Enzi. OK. Thank you.
One of the things, of course, that you touched on a little
bit and that we are extremely interested in in this committee
because of the No Child Left Behind Act that we worked on here
and got passed, can you go into, in a little bit more detail,
how the Western Governors University is helping teachers to
meet the requirement of being highly qualified?
Mr. Mendenhall. I think this is a great example of distance
learning. The No Child Left Behind Act essentially asked that
paraprofessionals in Title I schools gain an associate's degree
to continue to be employed and that new paraprofessionals had
to have an associate's degree to be hired, and that teachers
would have to be fully certified to continue teaching in
schools.
We have 500,000 paraprofessionals in public education, most
of whom do not have an associate's degree. They earn maybe
$15,000 a year, have families that they are supporting, and the
idea of them being able to quit work for 2 years and go gain an
associate's degree at a traditional institution is simply not
going to happen. We are either going to force them out of
schools and out of the education system, or provide a much more
flexible way for them to gain an associate's degree.
WGU offers an online competency-based associate's degree to
these paraprofessionals that they can do at their own time and
pace and hours that make sense for them. For most of our
students, that turns out to be between 10:00 at night and 2:00
in the morning, where they do a lot of their studying.
Similarly, up to 40 percent of our teachers in big urban
districts and in small rural districts are not yet certified.
They are required in most States to be certified within 2 or 3
years, and yet there is no practical way for them to continue
teaching and gain certification in a traditional classroom mode
in that time frame, so, again, unless we can provide a more
flexible online alternative to them, we are simply going to
force these people out of the education system. And it is not
clear who we would replace them with.
So we are offering, again, online competency-based teacher
certification programs to these individuals.
Senator Enzi. Thank you. I would like both you and Mr.
Shank to tell me a little bit more about some of the quality
assurance measures that your school has in place and what the
accrediting agencies that serve distance education ask for.
Mr. Mendenhall. I appreciate that. WGU is somewhat unique
in that, from the very beginning, we took a competency-based
model to issuing degrees; that is, we do not measure student
learning by how many courses a student takes or how many
classes they sit through. We instead define the competencies we
expect of a graduate and have developed assessments to measure
that learning, which, as Mr. Shank said, are some combination
of objective tests, performance tests, portfolios, doing as
well as knowing.
All of our students are required to pass those assessments
at a certain cut score to demonstrate mastery and competency in
order to graduate. So our quality measure, frankly, is very
straightforward. Either they have the competencies or they
don't.
The accreditors have difficulty in that kind of a model
simply because it is not the usual model. In general, the
accrediting bodies have come in and looked at things like the
governance of the university, the role of faculty, the
development of courses, and, as I mentioned in my earlier
testimony, sought to compare those with the way it is done in a
campus-based institution.
We would suggest that an institution that is created purely
for distance learning has the opportunity to start with a clean
slate and decide what would be of most benefit in distance
learning to provide quality education. Our faculty have a very
different role than traditional faculty. Our measure of
learning is somewhat different than simply seat time and credit
hours. But we have found the accreditors very willing to work
with us, to understand our model. We also have been
accommodating to fit within their model.
I mentioned in my testimony that we have been accredited by
both DETC, the Distance Education Training Council, and through
a process of regional accreditation. And we found both to be
equally rigorous. I suggest that if distance learning is going
to be included as Title IV-eligible, that DETC ought to be a
Title IV accrediting institution. They are not currently
because they only accredit distance learning institutions,
which aren't eligible for Federal financial aid. But they have
a great deal of experience in that arena.
We found them to be just as rigorous as regionals but,
frankly, a lot more timely. Their process is a one-step, kind
of 1-year process. Regional accreditation is a three-step, 5-
year process. And quite frankly, if you require a new
institution to exist for 5 years without accreditation, you are
going to do a lot to stifle innovation and creativity in higher
education.
We believe that you can measure learning now and that
Federal financial aid ought to be based on the quality of
learning which can be measured rather than on the mode of
delivery, which the 50-percent rule currently requires.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Mr. Shank?
Mr. Shank. Senator Enzi, our model is different than
Western Governors in the sense that we have an academic model
that looks much more traditional than Western Governors does.
So when it comes to academic quality of the students' work, the
context here is this is a learner who is enrolled in a
multiyear academic program, a series of courses. That learner
is required to participate over this multiyear series of course
multiple times a week, and so there is demonstration of work on
a course interaction basis, on a regular basis.
In addition, every learned is required to submit a written
demonstration of the learning outcomes, which may be papers,
which may be class projects like an MBA course or an IT type of
program. We do use some testing, but we tend to use less
testing than is typical in an undergraduate program.
But when you are talking about a distance environment, you
need to talk in a different paradigm about quality because
adults have different expectations of what quality is. One
expectation about quality is I am out there at a distance and I
expect the faculty member to respond to me. And if the faculty
member is not giving prompt response to my interactions, it is
not a quality experience.
So we are monitoring, assessing, and working with our
faculty about our expectations of the quality of participation,
the responsiveness to the participation.
There is a whole other element of quality when you are
dealing with adults, and that is, student services are as
important as the academic instruction going on. And, that is,
can the access to financial aid be seamless? Because I don't
have time to fool around with waiting in lines that happens in
a traditional experience. We are providing all of that online,
24 by 7.
How good is the access to advising? If I get in trouble,
how good is the university system to identify that I need help
and reach out and help?
So when you talk about quality in distance education, you
have to look at the service component as well as the academic
component.
Senator Enzi. It must be quite a challenge for teachers in
this, too, because a lot of the students have actual experience
in the workplace. Some of the teachers may not.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Shank. If I could issue one----
Senator Enzi. A bit challenging.
Mr. Shank. If I could issue one plea--and we are talking
about the important role of distance education in extending our
teaching capability certainly in K-12. And as a result of
Federal initiatives, we are spending billions of dollars,
probably, on infrastructure and computers. We are spending
peanuts on helping teachers teach effectively online. It is a
terribly important subject for Federal policy.
Senator Enzi. I think there is some resistance or
reluctance on the part of the teachers, too, because they are
sometimes of a different generation than the ones primarily
using the computers. So, yes, there has to be some additional
help there, too.
For all of you, what are some of the safeguards--this is
going to be a big topic when we get into the actual
reauthorization--that are preventing student aid fraud and
abuse. So what are some safeguards that are currently in place
or ones that you would suggest for us to counter that with? Mr.
Mayadas?
Mr. Mayadas. Our thought there would be that an accredited
institution--and, first of all, I agree with what has been
said. Accreditors must move in the direction of more outcomes
measurements. I think some input measurement is okay if it is
written in such a way that it is equally applicable to the
distance, and the campus environment can be worked through by
either side. But then outcomes are very important. Accreditors
want to do that. What they are doing right now is throwing it
over to the universities and saying you tell us what are the
appropriate outcome measurements, and I think some more effort
on the parts of universities to create these outcome
measurements will help drive that process.
But I think an accredited institution and outcome
measurements are a pretty good safeguard. If you are not
accredited or on the list of approved accreditation agencies,
you are not in business to get Federal aid. That is how we
would look at it.
Mr. Shank. In our submission, we proposed a criteria that
there is required interaction and that there be faculty
leadership in the courses. Now, the danger with this is--again,
I am not knowledgeable enough to know how this matches up with
a model like Western Governors. But we are not confident that
we know enough about self-paced education right now to
understand the effectiveness in a degree environment.
We also have raised the concept--and, again, I will admit
this is from our limited perspective--that much of the prior
fraud in the financial aid assistance had to do with
correspondence programs around vocational programs. And it does
seem to us if you focus on accredited, degree-granting
institutions, that will be an important safeguard that does not
create broad windows for fraud.
Senator Enzi. Ms. Ashby?
Ms. Ashby. I would tend to agree that accreditation is very
important. What we don't know yet is how well the accreditation
process is working. And as I said in my statement, part of what
we have been asked to do for your committee and for the House
Committee on Education and the Workforce is to look at the
accreditation process and see how well it is working and see if
there are recommendations that GAO might offer to improve the
process.
If the process is working effectively, I think it is a
powerful means of ensuring quality and accountability on the
part of distance education institutions as well as other
colleges and universities. Outcomes measures are very
important, but outcome measures in the absence of some third
party looking at how those outcome measures are determined, how
the records are kept, internal control procedures within the
institutions and so forth, is a lot less meaningful.
So I would agree with accreditation may be an important
part of the answer. I don't know if it is all of the answer.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Mr. Mendenhall?
Mr. Mendenhall. The 1992 Higher Education Act in effect put
a ban on use of Title IV student aid for distance education
institutions, and that was a reaction to the fraud and abuse
from correspondence schools and others in the 1980s. Since that
time, there have been over 100 changes in the law and
significant changes in the administration of financial aid,
which we believe applied not only to distance learning but,
obviously, to other institutions. And those same law changes
applied now to distance learning ought to be sufficient as the
law currently exists to curb that kind of abuse.
I think the goal for Congress in the Higher Education
Reauthorization Act is actually to encourage innovation and
creativity in higher education, to encourage the use of
distance learning and alternative forms of education.
We would be concerned about regulations that basically
dictate a method of learning or a mode of learning or certain
attributes that have to be there as opposed to simply measuring
the quality of learning that is taking place. To do otherwise
is to suggest that we have figured out exactly what constitutes
good learning and that no other model would be acceptable. And
I think we are still learning a lot about what constitutes good
learning.
Accreditation, I agree, is also one of the safeguards. My
feeling is that it needs to be more timely. If, in fact, again,
it takes years and years for a new institution to be
accredited, most of them will drop out of the race long before
they can prove their success. But I think the inclusion of a
group like DETC, which has experience in distance education and
has a thoughtful and timely process would be an important
addition to the accreditation process, particularly in distance
learning and in curbing fraud and abuse in distance education.
Senator Enzi. Mr. Mayadas?
Mr. Mayadas. I would support Bob's comment that even though
the four-credit degree-oriented education online in the country
today is hugely tilted toward instructor-led cohort-style
classes, as I described--maybe 98 percent of these programs go
that way--that should not be a necessity. I think there may be
different ways to do it. It is an economic question. Sometimes
you can spend a lot of money to create a very good learning
interface. Learning materials and so on may require less
instructor interaction and all that. So we shouldn't rule that
out. I think there is a real possibility that different ways of
learning will emerge and we ought not to paint ourselves into a
corner. I think the outcome measurements are the thing that
remain constant.
If I could just comment on one other thing that you had
asked earlier about the learners who have financial aid right
now, I just wanted to say that a number--in our experience, a
lot of the distance education students are special cases, for
instance, the Army case where their tuition is paid for; in the
example I cited. The NACTEL example, the collective bargaining
agreement between the companies and the union ensures that the
companies pay the tuition in that case.
So when you look at the average citizen, I think we will
run into a wall with this 50-percent rule because we are
beginning to see a certain number of traditional institutions
that are getting their distance education, online education
courses up around the 50-percent level. And that is going to be
a problem over there.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Mr. Mendenhall, in your written testimony, you suggested
that new institutions are better suited to distance learning
than existing universities. Why do you believe that? Would you
expand on that a little bit?
Mr. Mendenhall. Well, I think there are some existing
universities who are doing a great job of distance learning who
have created separate units to go focus on distance learning.
But, in general--I think this is true in every field, not just
in education--if you look at industry in general, usually
innovation requires new companies. Certainly in the technology
field, the new innovations have spawned new companies. And the
reason for that very simply is that existing institutions have
an installed base to protect and, therefore, can't innovate at
the pace of a new institution.
In the case of education, no existing institution is
developing distance learning programs without considering their
effect on classroom enrollments. Each of the existing
institutions has a faculty senate with a long history of we
will not create new programs without approval of the faculty.
And the faculty, therefore, have significant voice in we want
these programs in certain formats and in certain directions,
and we don't want it to change our traditional role or pay or
other kinds of things.
We have found, in creating a new institution for distance
learning, that we are able to redefine the role of faculty. For
example, at our institution, faculty are much more mentors of
students through an entire program rather than instructors for
a particular course. Their incentive is to help students learn,
not to conduct research, which is an important part of many
existing institutions.
As Mr. Shank said, student services are very different on
an online distance learning institution. We understand that
these are adults who shop on the Internet, who use the Internet
for a variety of things. They expect services to be available
24/7. Traditional institutions are still very much a 9-to-5
kind of effort.
So I am simply suggesting that real innovation in every
field generally results in new institutions who rethink the
enterprise from the ground up and design it to maximize the
delivery mechanism that they are using. And, in fact, we find
that today in education, I think, with innovative programs from
purely distance learning institutions.
Certainly to cut out the pure distance learning
institutions simply because they chose that mode of learning I
think would be short-sighted and would discourage innovation in
higher education.
Senator Enzi. Another question I have to ask, too, is that
I know that all the Governors that created the Western Governor
University all have universities. We have less in Wyoming than
anywhere else. But why did they create this? And what makes it
different from the universities that they have in their States
already?
Mr. Mendenhall. I think if you talk to the founding
Governors, it was primarily an economic development, a
workforce development issue. They were disappointed, to some
extent, in the responsiveness and innovation of State
institutions. They were getting an earful from companies in
their States about not being able to get the workers prepared
and trained in a way that was adequate. And particularly the
emphasis on competency-based education was an effort by the
Governors to create an education system that would be
responsive to the competencies that their businesses were
asking for and prepare a workforce and re-prepare a workforce,
that is, provide an education to adults that were not being
well served by traditional education.
The other clearly was the access issue in rural areas.
These are Western Governors who understand that a large portion
of their population lives an hour or 2 hours or more away from
any traditional kind of university and simply wouldn't have
access to education in any other way.
And so WGU was really set up to share distance learning
resources, to expand access, and to establish this competency-
based model of education that would be responsive to the needs
of industry.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
And for each of you, is there some question that I should
have asked--now, I am going to leave the record open for
another 7 days and my colleagues will be submitting questions
that I hope you will share answers with, and I even have a few
other questions here, too. But I will give each of you a chance
to make an additional statement or to ask a question and answer
it. So, Mr. Mayadas, do you----
Mr. Mayadas. I just wanted to add a bit to what Bob
Mendenhall had said about the new institutions perhaps being
more creative in distance education than the existing ones. I
would deviate a little bit from what Bob said in that I think
it is a matter of motivation on the part of the institutions.
The ones that are really motivated are going to do well, and I
can tell you that in our looking around, we find community
colleges to be--they have got their ears to the ground. They
know what their customers want, and they do a great job on very
skimpy resources.
When you look at the highly elite institutions, you don't
see them much in the picture. So it comes down to the
particular economics and the particular motivation. State
institutions tend to get motivated when their State Governments
encourage that, and most of them have done that and have made
it easier for them to get into this kind of thing.
Some private institutions are very highly tuition-driven.
That is how they exist. Those institutions are going to be
creative and innovative because this is how they will survive.
They need more enrollments. So it is going to be a very mixed
picture, I think.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Ms. Ashby. There is no particular question that I would say
you have not asked, but I will reiterate what we said in our
formal statement and what I said in my opening statement and
what I think you or Senator Wellstone said earlier. What we
need is a balance. It appears that distance education provides
a good opportunity for a lot of students who would not have
access to higher education, and certainly access is one of the
goals of not only the legislative and executive branches of
Government but GAO recognizes the importance of access. And
that is one of the things that we focused on for many, many
years in terms of the student financial aid programs.
But we also need controls, internal controls. They are a
lot more boring than distance education, I know, but they are
important. And I think in order for you to sell your programs
more widely, the last thing you need is some institution to
come along and commit fraud and make the headlines. So I think
we all do agree and we all are working for the same thing, but
in reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, please, take into
consideration the importance of controls, the importance of
accreditation. We will be able to give you more information
about that later when we finish our work. That is, I think,
right now the unknown from our perspective. We realize there
are a lot of accrediting agencies. We are not certain to the
extent that they have been able to apply their craft to
distance education. And so that is a caution that I would put
forth.
Thank you.
Senator Enzi. As the only accountant in the Senate, I
appreciate that accountability factor that you just added.
Mr. Shank?
Mr. Shank. Two comments, and I don't know that you have not
asked any questions that are important, but two comments: one
about the role of traditional campus-based schools in extended
distance education. I think do to some extent agree with the
comments that Mr. Mendenhall made, but I would offer a little
bit different perspective in that we are talking with 2-year
colleges across the country and actually some 4-year colleges
about joining in collaborative degree-granting relationships to
work with those institutions to extend their reach.
What we are finding is many of these schools know they need
to do this to achieve their missions and to reach adult
learners, but either they don't have the internal change
environment but they don't have the technology resources or the
financial resources.
What I believe we are going to see happening here is
growing collaboration with a virtual university like ourselves
and some land-based universities. That could produce really
good educational results.
I think there are probably issues in the Title IV framework
as to how easily that collaboration can take place if a student
may be sharing an experience between a land-based and a virtual
school, and that may be an important issue to look at.
I would also say something about what Ms. Ashby just said.
I really think that, in addition to the financial aid issue for
distance education, the issue of recognition of quality is our
most important issue to achieve the potential here. Frankly,
the biggest question we get is not a question about fraud, but
what will employers think of the degrees of the graduates? Will
it be recognized?
So if all of us could advance this subject, that real
education and real learning is going on here, this will be a
more and more powerful tool looking into the future.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Mr. Mendenhall?
Mr. Mendenhall. I would like to comment in closing on the
demonstration program that is being conducted by the Department
of Education in terms of extending financial aid programs to
distance education institutions. I think an interesting
question for the Congress is how has that gone and what success
has it found.
We were one of the original institutions included in the
demonstration program, and, again, financial aid is a very
important component to our students. I think you will find our
students as a whole use it as a slightly smaller percentage
because many of our students are being paid for by their
employers, as was mentioned earlier. But for those who are not
being paid for by their employers, they need Federal financial
aid as much as any of the other students in any of the other
programs.
We worked very closely with the Department of Education to
define satisfactory academic progress, which is a measure of
students' moving through the program, and limits the funds made
available to students, to those who are making satisfactory
academic progress. And I would just recommend that, as part of
the reauthorization, the demonstration program not be continued
but be made permanent in the sense that the Department be given
the flexibility to adapt its rules and regulations to
institutions that look a little bit different, that have a
different methodology. We were very different because financial
aid is typically based on credit hours, not on learning, and we
were able to create it based on learning objectives.
But I think that they have found in that program the
ability to give Federal financial aid to distance learning
students and not run significant risks of fraud and abuse. And,
hopefully, those powers will be extended further to the
Department.
Senator Enzi. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for
your excellent testimony and answers to the questions, and I
want to assure you as we move on in this process that the
information you have provided will be used, and you will
probably hear some quotes in some of the debate because it has
been that valuable. And you will also probably be receiving
some additional questions so we can kind of fill in a few more
of the blanks.
Thank you very much for your participation today. The
record will stay open for 7 days.
[Whereupon, at 11:28 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]