Colleges Move Courses Online

March 10, 2020

HEADLINES

Colleges Move Online Amid Virus Fears (Inside Higher Ed, March 9, 2020) “Though moving courses online typically requires an accreditation process, the Department of Education released a letter Thursday morning giving institutions broad approval to use distance technology temporarily to respond to the coronavirus without going through the regular approval process.”

Murray: March Deal on HEA Will Be Difficult (Inside Higher Ed, March 4, 2020) “The U.S. Senate education committee’s top Democrat, Patty Murray, threw some cold water yesterday on Senator Lamar Alexander’s hope of reaching a deal on reauthorizing the Higher Education Act by the end of this month.”

DeVos Fills Sole Student Slot on Outside Advisory Panel With A Former Aide (Republic Report, February 29, 2020) “Education secretary Betsy DeVos has appointed, as the sole student representative on a key Department of Education outside advisory committee, a Michigan law student who until recently worked at the Department as a confidential assistant to DeVos’s top higher education aide, Diane Auer Jones. The advisory body, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), focuses on oversight of the accrediting agencies that approve colleges to receive federal student grants and loans.”

Stratford University at Risk of Losing Accreditation (NBC4, [Washington, DC], February 28, 2020) “Stratford University, an independent university in Falls Church, Virginia, is at risk of losing its accreditation and is under orders to stop enrolling new students through mid-March. The university is under scrutiny for allegedly operating an unapproved program in Irbil, Iraq. The Iraq program at Stratford is also the subject of a civil lawsuit filed this week against the school in federal court in Virginia. ‘Given the seriousness of the allegations against Stratford University, the Council took the unprecedented step of requiring an immediate halt of all new enrollments and the submission of fully executed teach out agreements,’ the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools wrote to Stratford in a formal letter.”