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Guest Column

Diploma mills will gain if online course rules change

By DR. RON BARNETTA
Published August 1, 2006

As a retired professor emeritus from Georgia and a resident of Dunedin who has been offering online, Internet-delivered university courses for more than a decade, I was so pleased to read that the American Association of Community Colleges ranked St. Petersburg College in first place as the most "digitally savvy" community college in the country (www.aacc.nche.edu) for 2005.

Online learning is so vital for working adult students and others who seek to further their educational opportunities yet cannot accommodate times or circumstances for the traditional on-campus meeting arrangements. Internet-delivered courses can help answer their needs.

Rapidly evolving educational technology is truly a lifesaver for many who continue their education online, as students can access these courses any time, anywhere. However, these typically nontraditional students expect and deserve quality education through their online courses, faculties and institutions, as St. Petersburg College and other colleges are providing so admirably.

In 1992, the U.S. Congress enacted a so-called "50/50" rule, which required that in order to receive federal student aid, a student must be enrolled in an accredited institution that limits its "distance learning" courses to 50 percent of its course offerings.

This was enacted to block some for-profit schools from becoming little more than diploma mills intended to harvest federal student loans. The purpose was obvious: to limit taxpayer money for legitimate colleges' federal student aid programs, and to prevent exploitative for-profit degree mills not worthy of federal taxpayer assistance.

As of March 30, 2006, it just took a few paragraphs in U.S. House Bill 609 to open a new chapter in education: Colleges and universities would no longer be required to deliver at least 50 percent of their courses on a real campus instead of total Internet delivery to qualify for federal student aid. The U.S. Senate is considering its version of the bill, S.1614. Although these bills contain some very valuable elements, the parts that relate to the elimination of the 50 percent rule are troubling.

While both for-profit colleges and traditional nonprofit institutions have expanded their online courses in recent years, which is admirable in the context of quality education, only a few are fully Internet-based and most are for-profit schools. The new rules now enhance opportunities for expansion of "corporation schools," which should raise serious questions about the commercialization of education for profit in Florida (and America) and taxpayers' funding for their "clients."

Clear quality controls for faculties need careful scrutiny, as do their institutional commitments to objective standards for quality education. Who is to provide this? The well-established academic communities and colleges? The current standards of excellence for teaching and learning? Accrediting agencies that evaluate quality of learning? Who indeed?

These are serious questions for which taxpayers, educators and families should demand clear answers in this new era of online degree providers, as federal student aid with taxpayer moneys can now be diverted from bona fide colleges that deliver quality online education.

Progress with technology requires responsible accountability, and this should include the crucial importance of education in our state and nation. Our quality public and private institutions demand and deserve this.

It might be interesting to note the following, as one deliberates on this significant change in federal policy:

1. Sally L. Stroup, the former assistant secretary of education, (as of April the deputy staff director for the House Education Committee), who was the main regulator overseeing higher education, is a former lobbyist for the University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit college with some 300,000 students. (New York Times, March 1)

2. Two of the industry's closest allies in Congress are Rep. John Boehner of Ohio (sponsor of HR 609) and Rep. Howard McKeon of California, who is replacing Boehner as chairman of the House Education Committee and the Workforce. (New York Times, March 1)

3. The for-profit education industry has also hired well-connected people such as A. Bradford Card, the brother of the recent White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. (New York Times, March 1)

4. The elimination of the 50 percent rule will cost taxpayers more than $700-million over the next decade. (The Nation, March 28)

5. Fourteen of Florida's U.S. House of Representatives members voted in favor of HR 609, and nine voted against it; two did not vote. Florida senators vote soon on the Senate version of the bill, S.1614.

Dr. Ron Barnette of Dunedin is professor emeritus of philosophy at Valdosta State University in Georgia. He presently serves as executive secretary for the International Association for Computing and Philosophy.

[Last modified August 1, 2006, 05:43:46]