The U.S. Court of Appeals on June 5 sided with an earlier court ruling that would eliminate a federal regulation that higher-education officials characterized as heavy handed and a potentially devastating blow for online learning.
The court’s decision to “vacate” state authorization rules—which would require colleges with online programs to register courses in every state in which they operate—followed a 2011 U.S. District Court decision to strike down the law.
Eliminating the distance-education portion of the state authorization regulation was based purely on procedural grounds: The appeals court charged that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) did not comply with a federal rulemaking process that would provide the online community the chance to add comments and suggestions before implementation of the regulation.…Read More