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Aid for Telecomm Students
This is a copy of a memo prepared by Michael Goldstein of Dow Lohnes &
Albertson. DLA has since made the
article
available from their web site.
For more information, send email to
mgoldstein@dlalaw.com.
Congress has mandated that student enrolled in courses delivered
through the use of telecommunications be treated the same as students
in conventional courses when it comes to the awarding of federal
student financial assistance. Until the enactment of the 1992
statute, the U.S. Department of Education generally considered courses
offered through telecommunications to be a form of correspondence
study. The key language, at Sec. 484(m) of the amended Higher
Education Act, is straightforward:
This provision is very important for three key reasons:
The 1992 amendment also, for the first time, provides a broad definition of
telecommunications-based educational delivery systems:
This definition is extremely important, since in the past the
Department of Education distinguished "live" telecourses from all
other forms of telecommunicated instruction. There is a special
requirement for courses that utilize video cassettes or discs: the
course must also be delivered "in person to other students of that
institution." That means courses delivered through these two
specific media (but not the others enumerated) must also be delivered
on-campus, generally but not necessarily through "conventional" means.
Finally, the new law requires campus financial aid officers to adjust
federal aid to a student enrolled in telecommunication-based courses
if the delivery method "results in a substantially reduced cost of
attendance to such student." An institution cannot simply reduce
financial aid because the course is delivered through
telecommunications, but the aid officer is required to determine if
the delivery system "substantially" reduces actual costs, and to
adjust that student's aid accordingly. Since most students still have
living costs regardless of the mode of delivery, the effect of this
provision is likely to be minimal.
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