Why Does One Online Education Supporter Oppose Better Data on Online Education?

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education proposed regulations that would require colleges to provide more detailed data on students in online education programs. Given the rise of online education, including hybrid learning, it’s critical to understand how students' modes of attending college impact their success.

Do certain students, like those from low-income backgrounds, learn better through certain modalities? Do similar programs serving comparable student populations at different schools yield different outcomes? If so, how can colleges replicate those successful strategies across programs?

We don’t know the answers to these questions because we don’t have the data. The good news is the Education Department is looking to change that. But a prominent proponent for distance education, the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, or WCET, is opposing making these data public, depriving students, parents, college leaders, and policymakers of critical information.

Currently, the only available distance education data are aggregate enrollment information in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS. That essentially tells us totals of students learning fully in-person, fully online, or in a hybrid modality at particular schools. But this aggregate information doesn’t reveal a necessary level of detail: how particular students are faring at particular schools in particular programs through particular modalities.

The department’s proposed rule would require institutions to report student-level data on the modality of instruction for students receiving federal financial aid. The idea actually stemmed from negotiations on distance education rules this spring, when representatives from across the higher education sector, including for-profit, public, and private nonprofit colleges and consumer advocates, presented that proposal to the department.

At the end of that negotiation, all representatives, the vast majority of whom are from colleges, supported the proposal. It’s not surprising — colleges already have these data to report to IPEDS and could easily provide them to the Education Department through existing reporting mechanisms, including to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS).

The second proposal would create a “virtual location” for a college for federal reporting purposes, differentiating program-level data for students in fully online programs from those in in-person or hybrid programs. Current available data do not distinguish between online programs and in-person or hybrid programs.

A student might be deciding between online and in-person programs in the same field at the same institution, but can’t compare outcomes because all the data are reported as one program.

Take a student who is considering whether to enroll in either a college’s online or in-person Master’s of Business Administration.

The two programs may have vastly different success rates in terms of student debt and post-graduation earnings, but an applicant won’t know that because they’re reported as one program to the federal government. The department’s proposal would allow that student to see how the online program compares to the in-person program.

This change would also better enable the Education Department to provide debt relief called closed school discharge to students whose colleges end a learning modality, either in-person or online.

For example, one institution, Trinity International University, recently announced it was ending only in-person enrollment. The college’s students might not be able to complete their degree program online, or they may not prefer to learn online. In situations like these, students who cannot finish their education would be better protected because the department could discharge their loans because it could tell whether the college ended a physical or virtual option.

It’s hard to imagine someone arguing against better data for students, taxpayers, and policymakers, but one prominent advocate for online learning has just done that. WCET opposes both of these proposals.

Some of WCET’s complaints, including about the burden to colleges, are to be expected. What was not expected — and is frankly shocking — is that it doesn’t seem to want the data out there at all.

WCET’s most mind-boggling complaint is that the Education Department would use the data elsewhere, such as for program oversight audits or to include in College Scorecard program-level data. WCET said in a public statement it “can see where collecting some of this information might make sense, but others make us worry about the possibility of seeking reasons to defund distance education programs.” It went on to say:

“Importantly, we have sincere concerns about how the Department might use such data. We hope clear research questions are elucidated when they propose the data elements. Meanwhile, we are all aware of ‘research’ that pins differences in student success on modality while overlooking differences in the population served. And in the long list of items the Department suggests, the necessary demographics are missing. We are worried that the Department might erroneously make a correlation equals causation argument regarding student success in distance education.”

Other complaints WCET raised beg the question of why it opposes collecting better distance learning data. WCET says on its website that it “seeks to improve educational equity by increasing access to high-quality digital learning educational options.” If that’s true, shouldn’t we get better data to understand program quality? Shouldn’t we be able to identify and uplift high-quality online programs?

WCET’s concern about the lack of research is not an argument against getting better student outcome data—it’s the perfect argument for it. WCET says it’s worried about existing research pinning any differences on modality, rather than demographics. The existing research is limited precisely because we do not have data to understand the nuances of student success by modality.

Keeping this information from students and the public is wrong. Students deserve better data to make one of the most important and, often expensive, decisions of their lives. The student mulling over whether to enroll online or in-person should be able to compare them accurately. Students can't learn about debt and earnings for online programs if an institution offers both on-campus and online options in the same field. There could be many online programs with outcomes that exceed their on-campus counterpart, but that is lost in existing data.

WCET’s complaints also go against institutions’ interests. Shouldn’t institutions also want these data to better understand how their students fare? Colleges already analyze retention, graduation and compare learning modalities to inform decisions on curriculum and program changes.

Wouldn’t institutions want to know the different earnings outcomes for online and in-person programs so they could highlight when online program graduates earn more? Why wouldn’t they want to know when online students earn less (and try to figure out a way to improve those earnings)? Of course they want that information, which is why all of the institutional negotiators supported the proposal.

WCET has also criticized the department’s student-level data as falling short of the agency’s policy goals because it only applies to those receiving federal financial aid.

But WCET knows the Education Department cannot change the law that prohibits it from collecting information on all students. That’s Congress’s job.

The public absolutely should have better data on all students, but current law only allows the Education Department to have this information on Title IV recipients (although more than 150 groups, including New America, and a large bipartisan group in Congress, are trying to change that).

So until the law is rewritten, the department’s proposal is consistent with current data practices that inform the College Scorecard and more—and would provide much-needed information about students in all types of programs. The federal government invests billions of dollars in higher education and better information can provide a better understanding of the payoff of that investment.

WCET claims to want better data, but its protests sound like it opposes seeing the differences between student outcomes based on the mode of instruction. It should make anyone wonder why. Anyone who cares about students should support better data to understand their outcomes, address equity gaps, and improve student success. The Education Department is right to support better data in higher education. It’s time for some outliers in the industry to get on board.