Do you think the decision to choose which college to attend is your right as a student? That’s what some members of the U.S. House of Representatives argued recently when it came to a proposed rule threatening federal funding of career schools.

An amendment that passed the House on Feb. 18 would bar the U.S. Department of Education from using federal dollars to enforce rules that will link for-profit colleges’ ability to get funding to student outcomes and rates of loan repayment. For-profit colleges are the fastest-growing sector of higher education, accounting for more than 10 percent of postsecondary students, The Washington Post reported.

Reuters reported that the proposed rule would make schools more accountable for the $145 billion in federal dollars they get for student aid; they would have to prove they are doing a better job of preparing students for a career.

Supporters in the House argued that the delay of the proposed gainful employment rule would preserve students’ right to choose which college they attended, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. It quoted Rep. John P. Kline Jr. (R-Minn.) as saying: “This is an assault on students’ ability to find a school that fits their needs.”

A Florida Democrat, Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, told the House that the rule would cause the closing of schools that train essential workers such as nurses and physical therapists, The Washington Post reported. He said: “What will happen to the single mother trying to change careers who wants the flexibility of a private-sector college?”

Groups such as the National Black Chamber of Commerce support the House’s amendment. It said in a press release: “This great victory will help stop a rule that would disproportionately hurt African American and other minority students who rely on career colleges to learn real-world skills that help them get jobs.”

The amendment is now headed to the Senate, so let’s keep watch of what happens.

I’ve been wondering for quite a while why we’re still not past questioning the value of online education. Following my recent conversation with Diane Auer Jones, vice president for external and regulatory affairs for the Career Education Corporation and former U.S. assistant secretary of postsecondary education, I got to thinking – maybe we remain unconvinced of the rigors of online education because doubt is trickling from the top down.

A comment made by a Department of Education official in recent weeks is telling:

“The real problem is that too many 18- 23-year-olds are schooling online.”

Yes, you read that right!

Unless Congress passes a law that no young students can learn online, officials have no right to make such a value judgment that online students are “recluses sitting in their parents’ basement,” says Jones. More often, she adds, eLearners live in a remote region and simply cannot make it to a ground-based campus. Plus, most young online students are pursuing higher education while also holding down a job.

“People are making value judgments about how students learn best,” says Jones. And she knows, because she used to be one of them.

A Personal Journey
“Once upon a time I held a bias toward online learning,” says Jones. “I thought it was simply an electronic textbook.” Having had no personal experience with online education, she admits that she was fearful of the unknown. Her assumptions were tested, however, when she began to homeschool her two children.

“When I really got exposure to what online learning was all about,” she says, “I saw that online education can solve a lot of the problems that classroom learning can’t address – especially when you get into adaptive learning.”

Jones believes that, when it comes to the online vs. ground-based education debate, educators are looking for one answer that applies to everyone – a magic bullet of sorts. And that’s where the disparity between the haves and the have-nots comes dangerously into play.

“The conversation [about online learning] is dominated by those with an elite, classroom-based education,” says Jones. “They want to set the standards for everybody based on what’s right for them.”

In spite of the perceptions of online education by some at the federal level, however, eLearning is not better or worse than classroom-based education, she says. Some students thrive in an online environment, while others simply don’t or can’t. But success in online education is not a rarity, says Jones:

“This generation is more capable of learning online than the previous generation.”

What do you think? Sound off on this very important topic below, and please share this post with your network on Facebook and Twitter. Let’s get some good debate going!

-Robyn Tellefsen

This Valentine’s Day, we were inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnet 43 to consider our love for eLearning. After all, online education offers fabulous, fantastic ways to show your family that you love them. Here are just a few:

>> Flexibility
When you’ve got a class on campus, it’s a hard-and-fast commitment. But when you’re schooling online, you can arrange your schedule around your family commitments instead of the other way around. eLearning can allow you to get to your kids’ soccer game, your spouse’s work party, your sister’s art show… School is still a top priority, of course, but online ed can help you prove to the ones you love that it’s not your only priority.

>> Financial freedom
Online education isn’t cheaper than campus-based higher ed, but there are plenty of incidentals you won’t have to worry about when you go virtual. eBooks can be less expensive than hard copies, and even more important, you’ll save plenty of money on parking, tolls, and gas (now over $3 per gallon!). You’ll also save yourself from the wear and tear of commuting – which can be costly for your car as well as your sanity.

>> Future prospects
Whether you’re back in school to earn a degree or to complete career training courses or certification, online education can go a long way toward building a secure future for your family. Completing an online program shows employers (and everyone else) that you have the discipline and motivation to succeed. It also highlights your willingness to move beyond the status quo, try new things, and embrace technologies that are critical to the success of any 21^st-century organization.

>> Fun, fun, fun
Not only does online education give you the opportunity to make time for your family in everyday life, but it also allows you to be part of special vacation and play times together. If you’ve got a laptop or iPad, and the spot where you’re staying offers Internet access (most places do), you’ll have the freedom to go away with your family and still keep your academic commitments. You can join in on the major outings and carve out dedicated study time, too.

>> Fortified family bonds
eLearning enables you to give to your family and, in turn, it affords them a great opportunity to give back to you. Managing laundry, cooking, and other household chores can be especially tough when you’re logging in to participate in an important class discussion. This is where your family can really help out. When you enlist their support and make your online education journey a team effort, you’re giving them a chance to contribute to your success. This kind of give-and-take is essential to building strong, healthy relationships.

Prove your love this Valentine’s Day by pursuing online education. The fam will thank you for it!

-Robyn Tellefsen

Technology makes it possible for people to pursue education at all times, but there can be numerous distractions if you’re learning from home, the office or the road versus sitting in a traditional classroom with a professor.

Online students identified three top distractions for learning online – and how to overcome them.

1. Being unable to resist Facebook, Twitter and more!

Updating your status and clicking on photos, funny stories and links to videos and articles shared by friends can take minutes and hours away from coursework (even we’ve logged onto those sites while writing this blog, but we swear, it was for research purposes!). You can easily get lost checking out what is going on with all your friends and colleagues, says Andi Wrenn, who lives in Boston and attends Liberty University Online.

Take steps to separate from social media – not forever, but just while you need to concentrate on your classes and assignments. You could get rid of your Facebook tab if it’s just too easy for you to click on it. Consider updating your status to say you’re getting off Facebook to focus on school – your Facebook friends should hold you accountable if they see you getting back on. Also, close your e-mail and include a message that says you are away because of schoolwork.

2. Figuring out how online learning really works.

A lot of time can be eaten up just with logistics. Not all instructors and students have the same level of tech savvy or the same hardware/software, and you could be spending time trying to figure out where assignments are posted and why you’re getting server errors when you log in at different places, says Karen Southall Watts, who completed her graduate student as an online student, and who know teaches at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, Wash. To try to avoid some of these problems, educate yourself at the start of the course as to the ins and outs of the online class setup, and also try to give yourself extra time when logging in from another location in case any technical problems arise.

3. Being needed elsewhere.

The dog needs to go out, the kids need to be fed or taken to an activity, your boss is asking you to do another “drop everything” for a work assignment… all of these and more combine to hinder your ability to get your coursework done. One way to tackle this challenge is to make clear to the others in your life when you are a student and when you are a parent, employee, etc., even via a schedule in writing that shows when time will be devoted to school.

But also remember that it can be exhausting to sit in front of a computer for hours, Southall Watts says. So after a long period of coursework or dealing with a tough topic, you need to talk to a live person or get away from the computer and do something active away from technology. It will make you all the more productive when you log back in.

-Lori Johnston

If you have any interest in online education whatsoever (which I assume you do if you’re reading this blog), you already know about the bad press garnered by for-profit institutions in recent years. Due in part to integrity concerns resulting from questionable practices at some of these schools, the Department of Education has created new student financial aid rules to amend the current code of federal regulations. The rules, which are designed to strengthen Title IV student aid programs by ensuring that only eligible students and programs receive federal financial assistance, go into effect July 1.

One of the ways the DOE plans to protect borrowers and taxpayers is by making sure the government recovers Title IV grants and loans from students who do not complete their program of study. When a student withdraws from a program, the school must determine the amount of assistance the student received and calculate the amount that must be returned to the DOE. And in order to do this, the institution must document the student’s last day of attendance in an “academically related activity.”

Here’s where it gets interesting. When it comes to ground institutions, the rule for what constitutes an academically related activity is fairly simple: “…physically attending a class where there is an opportunity for direct interaction between the instructor and students is considered academic attendance.”

When it comes to online education, however, the requirement is not equivalent: “With respect to what constitutes attendance in a distance education context, the Department does not believe that documenting that a student has logged into an online class is sufficient by itself to demonstrate academic attendance by the student…”

In a recent post on The Chronicle Review’s blog, Diane Auer Jones, vice president for external and regulatory affairs for the Career Education Corporation and former U.S. assistant secretary of postsecondary education, calls out this apparent double standard:

“…starting on July 1st of this year, when a student is enrolled in an online course, and she performs the equivalent of walking into class by logging into the electronic classroom portal, the Department of Education will not consider this to be an academically related activity. Well, is entering the classroom an academically related activity or isn’t it?”

When I spoke with Jones, she pointed out that at ground institutions that do not require attendance, many of which grade students solely on the basis of a midterm and final, there is no evidence that students ever walked into the classroom. So why should online institutions be held to a higher standard than on-ground institutions?

“Nobody wants to see institutions charging the government for students who are not actually in class,” says Jones. “But the issue transcends validation. It’s a witch hunt.”

–Robyn Tellefsen

While the economy was working through its toughest couple of years (and still is), more people turned to education than ever before. As reported by Inside Higher Ed:

In fall 2009, during one of the most devastating years of the current financial crisis, 7.1 percent more students enrolled in college than had the previous fall, according to data released Wednesday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). And while all types of institutions — public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit — saw a bump, for-profit institutions easily outpaced the other sectors, growing their rolls by nearly 25 percent and their revenues by 21 percent, the federal study found.

The report also gets into the graduation rates and retention rates, which of course, need improvement all around, with two-year for-profit school programs having the best success. Hopefully, and I suspect they are, institutions are working hard to apply their success formulas with their two-year students to their four-year ones. Support needs to be given throughout one’s academic career because let’s face it — a lot can happen to a person’s circumstances in a four-year period that can easily deter them from finishing their degree.

One thing’s for sure: We’re in a period of change in the education industry, and hopefully, in the next five to ten years, students will reap the rewards of an improved system. Until then, the positive takeaway in this report is the fact that the public still believes in higher education despite its shortcomings. For now, we’ll take it.

-Dawn Papandrea