Distance education and international issues heat up

Congress should wrap up several higher education issues this session before tackling reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which it will undertake in 2003-04. For now, representatives have their hands full with monitoring ongoing distance-education programs, honing national security measures affecting international students, and dealing with other issues related to technology and student aid.

The Senate is holding hearings on and preparing to pass a distance-education bill that is companion legislation to H.R. 1992, which passed the House in October 2001. The bill would lift restrictions on the number of courses colleges and universities could offer online and still have their students qualify for federal student aid.

For much of the 1990s, federal regulations have been geared toward protecting against fraud in the student aid program, especially among schools in the for-profit sector. The AFT had a hand in getting those anti-fraud measures passed and has expressed similar concerns as online education programs proliferate. The union wants to see enforcement of low default rates on student loans for students enrolled in these programs. We also want to see two provisions remain intact--the 50 percent rule, which limits the percentage of online courses an institution can offer, and the 12-hour rule, which is the number of credit hours per semester a student must take on site.

In 1998, Congress set up a demonstration project that lifted these rules allowing a handful of institutions to experiment with offering distance education while their students still qualified for federal aid. Now one of the pilot institutions, Masters Institute in San Jose, Calif., has closed its doors on 1,200 distance-education students and 900 on-site students. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating fraud. Some observers of the 25-year-old institution note that its financial problems really snowballed after it became part of the pilot project.

"It's a microcosm of what could happen," says Gabriella Gomez, the AFT's higher education legislation expert. "It raises concerns about whether we would be able to manage lifting the rules to all schools." The AFT supports letting the demonstration program play out for the next three years.

Another technology bill the AFT is watching is the proposed Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH). This bill would amend federal copyright laws so that educators could send material over the Internet without paying royalties. The AFT is following this bill with an eye on protecting the rights of the creators of information.

The union also has been following the progress of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001. This legislation restricts visas from countries labeled as sponsors of terrorism and provides numerous mechanisms for tracking students once they come to the United States to study. Before September, the AFT's major concern was that the cost to international students would not be prohibitive; post-Sept.11, the AFT wants to ensure that the act does not violate students' civil rights.

Applying GATS to higher education

The United States has extended a proposal to the World Trade Organization that would make it easier for countries to provide higher education across international boundaries. The proposal is causing controversy; although it states a respect for various countries' traditional public education systems, it aims to lift the barriers to private companies that provide "supplementary" education and training services, such as distance education and testing.

The proposal addresses openings caused by the passage of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 1995. Some of the threats and potential opportunities posed by GATS have been the subject of discussion at meetings of Education International, an organization of international education unions. To see a paper on the subject by former AFT higher education deputy director Perry Robinson, go to www.aft.org/higher_ed/. To see the U.S. proposal, visit www.ustr.gov/sectors/services/educ.pdf.

The next meeting of the higher education branch of Education International will be held in April in Montreal. Watch the AFT Web site for a report later next month.
 

A narrowing view of ADA

January's U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which further limits how workers are covered by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is not consistent with what Congress intended, says AFT counsel David Strom. The court ruled Jan. 8 that an automobile assembly plant worker's carpal tunnel syndrome did not qualify her as disabled under the ADA.

Specifically, the court found that the worker's disability did not prevent or severely restrict her from activities that were central to her daily life, such as household chores and bathing. Strom says that the court's decision establishes that future disability determinations should be reached on an "individual, case-by-case basis," a position which acknowledges that people suffering, for example, from carpal tunnel "have a broad swath of manifestations."

Strom takes issue with the court's narrowing of the law. "If an employee is significantly limited in his or her ability to perform in the workplace, then that is a disability, and the employee should be protected under the ADA," Strom points out. "In my opinion, that is what Congress intended."

The decision, he notes, "will curtail the prospects for success for a number of ADA cases--and AFT union leaders who are making decisions about bringing cases need to be aware of that."

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in another ADA-related case this year. At issue is the extent to which an employee's request for reasonable accommodation under the ADA can trump collectively bargained seniority rights for a job.

The maximum Pell Grant award will increase next fall, thanks to the determination of House and Senate lawmakers. They voted at the end of 2001 to increase the maximum award from $3,750 to $4,000, but then ran up against the White House Office of Management and Budget. OMB said Congress didn't have enough money for the future increase because of a deficit in the fund paying for the current year's grants. Lawmakers remain committed to going ahead with the increase, promising that in the months ahead they will find the money to cover this year's $900 million shortfall. President Bush signed this into law in January, along with Congress's approved increases for the other major aid programs that serve disadvantaged students--TRIO, GEAR-UP, and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants.