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How a Change in Administration Might Impact Distance Education: What WCET Leadership is Anticipating

In November, Russ Poulin and Van Davis, the retiring and incoming executive directors of WCET, respectively, discussed with the Every Learner network changes in law, regulations, and policy on distance education that might result from the transition from the Biden to the Trump presidential administrations.

Drawing on WCET’s deep expertise in state and federal policy, Poulin and Davis outlined potential changes at the U.S. Department of Education, the possible emergence of short-term Pell grants, the impact on accrediting agencies, and the implications of recent Supreme Court rulings for how the Department of Education might operate.

Below is a summary of their informal remarks, along with some updates based on developments since that meeting.

The fate of proposals in progress

“We’re now in a fairly uncertain time, because the new administration coming in has not been super clear on its broad post-secondary education priorities, especially with distance education,” Poulin noted.

He mentioned that under the Biden administration, the Department of Education has been considering several proposed regulations related to distance education. Those include:

  • Requiring programs to record attendance for every distance education course—in this case, “attendance” means preserving every instance of “academic engagement,” such as taking a test, submitting a paper, or participating in an academic discussion
  • Classifying students in programs that are 100% online into a new category called “a virtual location”
  • Adding new requirements for state authorization reciprocity
  • Disallowing eligibility of asynchronous clock-hour instruction for Title IV financial aid programs
  • Requiring that “inclusive access” textbook programs be opt in instead of opt out

However, Poulin said he doesn’t expect these proposals to be implemented, as they would likely be left for the new administration to decide upon. He also explained that it takes time to staff up the new department with political appointees (as opposed to career staff) and begin making decisions.

The new administration “might pull a few things out of this and put it forward, but we doubt that much of it will go forward, if any of it at all,” Poulin said.

(Update: Since this meeting, the U.S. Department of Education has submitted many of these regulations to the Office of Management and Budget. This is the last step before they are made final. Even so, they are unlikely to survive the change in administration.)

In a similar category is the current pause on the third-party service (TPS) guidance. A February 2023 decision expanded who TPS regulations applied to, which impacted institutions that use outside contractors. After public comment, the Education Department paused that decision in late 2024, rolling back the guidance to its pre-February 2023 state. At the same time, they indicated that they intended to revise and update the guidance in 2025.

“We don’t think that’s going to happen now,” Poulin explained.

The future of the Department of Education

Davis referenced the Trump campaign’s suggestion of abolishing the Department of Education and described why that is unlikely: It would take congressional action, and, even though Republicans will control Congress and the Executive branch, it’s unclear that there is appetite among Republican legislators to completely get rid of the Department of Education.

Significant budget cuts to the Department of Education, however, are more likely, Davis said, along with reallocation of duties from the Department to other executive agencies. For example, moving responsibility for administering financial aid from the Department of Education to the Treasury Department has been floated.

Budget cuts in the Department of Education could take the form of cutting specific programs such as those supporting college preparation or early childhood education.

An exodus of career staff that occurred during the first Trump administration could also be a factor. “I suspect that we’re going to continue to see more career staff retire or take jobs elsewhere, so I think we’re going to see a smaller Department of Education,” Davis said.

There has also been some discussion of reducing staffing in the Department either through reclassifying career staff as political appointees, therefore making it easier to fire them, or requiring all staff to physically return to the office, thus triggering a wave of resignations.

That in turn slows the ability of appointed staff during a new administration to make changes. “It’s hard to make policy and regulate and assess adherence to regulations when you don’t have the staff to do that,” Davis said.

Finally, the nomination of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education might signal attempts to reduce the size and scope of the Department of Education. In addition to being the former Administrator for the Small Business Association and a former executive of Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment, McMahon is co-founder of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has advocated for a reduction in the Department’s scope.

Other prospective federal government activity impacting higher education

Davis said he is watching how the new administration works on a few other issues.

One, anti-DEI efforts at the state level could provide a blueprint for federal-level efforts.

Two, there could be efforts to revise accreditation standards, including those related to DEI.

Three, the incoming administration is very interested in workforce education. That could result in “short-term Pell” — expanding eligibility for Pell grants for low-income students to short-term credentialing programs. This would require congressional action. It’s important to note that McMahon has penned an op-ed in support of short-term Pell.

“Previous discussions of short-term Pell were not going to allow distance education to participate in that program,” Davis said. “But Republicans are a bit more bullish on distance education than the Democrats in Congress were.”

Supreme Court rulings

Finally, Davis described how two recent Supreme Court rulings — on the Loper Bright and Corner Post cases — could impact distance education.

The ruling on Loper Bright reversed the longstanding Chevron deference rule that gave authority to federal agencies to interpret ambiguous congressional statutes. The result of the Loper Bright ruling is that agencies like the Education Department now have more limited ability to develop guidance.

“The challenge in all of this is that the Higher Education Act hasn’t been reauthorized in a very long time,” Davis said. “So we’re dealing with statutory language that really predates distance education and digital learning. We’re not going to have a legislative framework to govern higher education and particularly digital learning and distance education . . . . So unless there is a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act . . . the Department really is going to be limited in the sort of regulations that it can put forward.”

The Corner Post ruling has the effect of extending the period during which someone can sue to challenge a federal regulation. That expands the range of private parties who could potentially file challenges to guidance letters or regulations from the Education Department.

“It’s going to take a while for [challenges] to wind through the court system, so that’s going to be a very slow process,” Davis said. “Regulations are regulations until they aren’t, and the process for getting them struck down is going to be very slow going . . . . You may hear about [a specific challenge] but it may take two years for [the courts] to get to it.”

Change is slow

Ultimately, Poulin and Davis emphasized, the most likely thing is that the processes described above will limit the changes that have been floated, and the two Supreme Court rulings had the effect of adding more process.

“Any attempt to try to say where this is all going is pretty much folly at this point,” Davis said. “It always takes longer than they think it’s going to.”

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