DOCUMENT RESUME ED 472 674 IR 021 889 H.R. 1992, the Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001. TITLE Hearing before the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session (June 20, 2001). Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. House Committee on INSTITUTION Education and the Workforce. House-Hrg-107-20 REPORT NO 2002-00-00 PUB DATE NOTE 182p. U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, AVAILABLE FROM Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001. Tel: 866-512-1800 (Toll Free); Tel: 202-512-1800; Fax: 202-512-2250. For full text: http://gpo.gov/congress/house. Legal/Legislative/Regulatory Materials (090) PUB TYPE EDRS Price MF01/PC08 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Access to Computers; Competition; Educational Legislation; DESCRIPTORS Elementary Secondary Education; *Equal Education; Federal Government; *Internet; Legislation Congress 107th; Federal Records; Senate IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT The Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives met at 10:33 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2001, in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building to hear testimony on H.R. 1992, the Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001. Chairman of the Subcommittee, Hon. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon presided, and limited the opening statements to the chairman, the ranking minority member, and a designee from each side. Contents include: Opening Statements of Chairman McKeon and Vice Chairman Johnny Isakson; Statement of Stanley 0. Ikenberry, President, American Council on Education, Washington, D.C.; Statement of. Lorraine Lewis, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C.; Statement of Richard J. Gowen, President, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota; Statement of Omer E. Waddles, Executive Vice President, ITT Educational Services, Inc., On Behalf of the Career College Association, Indianapolis, Indiana; and Statement of Joseph S. DiGregorio, Vice Provost for Distance Learning, Continuing Education and Outreach, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. The following Statements are appended: Written Opening Statement of Chairman McKeon; Written Statement Submitted for the Record by Ranking Member Patsy Mink on Behalf of Congresswoman Betty McCollum, Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, Committee on Education and the Workforce, from Steve Shank, Chancellor, Capella University, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Written Opening Statement of Vice Chairman Isakson; Written Statement of Stanley O. Ikenberry; Written Statement of Lorraine Lewis; Written Statement of Richard J. Gowen; Written Statement of Omer E. Waddles; Written Statement of Joseph S. DiGregorio; and Letter Submitted for the Record by Ranking Member Patsy Mink from Juliet Garza, Chairperson, Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, Washington, D.C.; Report to Congress on the Distance Education Demonstration Programs Submitted for the Record by Ranking Member Patsy Mink; and Questions Submitted for the Record to U.S.Secretary of Education Roderick Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the on inal document. Paige by Ranking Member Patsy Mink; Responses Submitted for the Record by U.S. Secretary of Education Roderick Paige to Questions Submitted by Ranking Member Patsy Mink; Letter Submitted for the Record by Chairman McKeon from Secretary of Education Roderick Paige; and Written Statement Submitted for the Record by Chairman McKeon from Dr. Ron Chenail, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A Table of Indexes is included. (AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. H.R. 1992, THE INTERNET EQUITY AND EDUCATION ACT OF 2001 HEARING -7r .() BEFORE THE cV t- SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS. FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 20, 2001 Serial No. 107-20 Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2002 77-908 pdf For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512-1800 FAX: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 CN 00 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement OC EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION rm.( CENTER (ERIC) 6 NI This document has been reproduced as , received from the person or organization BEST COPY AVAILABLE .124 originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. i--11-4 2 Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. II COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman GEORGE MILLER, California THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan MARGE ROUICEMA, New Jersey MAJOR R. OWENS, New York CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan PATSY MINK, Hawaii HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, California ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware TIM ROEMER, Indiana SAM JOHNSON, Texas ROBERT C. "BOBBY" SCOTT, Virginia JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California LINDSEY 0. GRAHAM, South Carolina LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas CHARLIE W. NORWOOD, JR, Georgia CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts FRED UPTON, Michigan RON KIND, Wisconsin VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee LORETTA SANCHEZ, California VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky DAVID WU, Oregon JIM DeMINT, South Carolina RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia HILDA L. SOLIS, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia SUSAN DAVIS, California JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota TODD RUSSELL PLAITS, Pennsylvania PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio RIC KELLER, Florida TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas Paulo Nowakowski, Chief of Staff John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21°' CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS Chairman HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, California, PATSY MINK, Hawaii JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia, Vice Chairman JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN BOEHNER, Ohio RON KIND, Wisconsin MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey SAM JOHNSON, Texas DAVID WU, Oregon LINDSEY 0. GRAHAM, South Carolina LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota FRED UPTON, Michigan ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 3 AVAILABLE 1 EST COPY iii Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES . 2 OPENING STATEMENT OF VICE CHAIRMAN JOHNNY ISAKSON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES . 5 STATEMENT OF STANLEY 0. IKENBERRY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 9 COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. STATEMENT OF LORRAINE LEWIS, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. 12 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.0 STATEMENT OF RICHARD J. GOWEN, PRESIDENT, SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES AND TECHNOLOGY, RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA ... 15 STATEMENT OF OMER E. WADDLES, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ITT EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE CAREER COLLEGE 17 ASSOCIATION, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA STATEMENT OF JOSEPH S. DiGREGORIO, VICE PROVOST FOR DISTANCE LEARNING, CONTINUING EDUCATION AND OUTREACH, GEORGIA 19 INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ATLANTA, GEORGIA APPENDIX A - WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, 39 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES APPENDIX B - WRITTEN STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY RANKING MEMBER PATSY MINK ON BEHALF OF CONGRESSWOMAN BETTY McCOLLUM, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, FROM STEVE SHANK, CHANCELLOR, CAPELLA UNIVERSITY, 43 MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA APPENDIX C - WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF VICE CHAIRMAN JOHNNY ISAKSON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, 55 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 4 iv APPENDIX D - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STANLEY 0. IKENBERRY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.. 59 APPENDIX E - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF LORRAINE LEWIS, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.0 71 APPENDIX F - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF RICHARD J. GOWEN, PRESIDENT, SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES AND TECHNOLOGY, RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA 81 APPENDIX G - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF OMER E. WADDLES, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ITT EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, INC., INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA 91 APPENDIX H - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JOSEPH S. DiGREGORIO, VICE PROVOST FOR DISTANCE LEARNING, CONTINUING EDUCATION AND OUTREACH, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ATLANTA, GEORGIA 111 APPENDIX I - LETTER SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY RANKING MEMBER PATSY MINK, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, FROM DR. JULIET GARZA, CHAIRPERSON, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 123 APPENDIX J - REPORT TO CONGRESS ON THE DISTANCE EDUCATION DEMONSTRATION PROGRAMS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY RANKING MEMBER PATSY MINK, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 127 APPENDIX K - QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD TO U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION RODERICK PAIGE BY RANKING MEMBER PATSY MINK, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 172 APPENDIX L - RESPONSES SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION RODERICK PAIGE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY RANKING MEMBER PATSY MINK, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21sT CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 176 APPENDIX M - LETTER SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, FROM SECRETARY OF EDUCATION RODERICK PAIGE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 182 V APPENDIX N - WRITTEN STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, FROM DR. RON CHENAIL, VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, FORT LAUDERDALE, 186 FLORIDA 195 Table of Indexes 1 Hearing On "H.R. 1992, the Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001" Wednesday, June 20, 2001 U. S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness Committee on Education and the Workforce Washington, D.C. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:33 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon [chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives McKeon, Isakson, Ehlers, Mink, Tiemey, Holt, Wu, Rivers, Andrews, and Hinojosa. Also present: Representative Hilleary. Staff present: George Conant, Professional Staff Member; Blake Hegeman, Legislative Assistant; Sally Lovejoy, Director of Education and Human Resources policy; Patrick Lyden, Professional Staff Member; Michael Reynard, Deputy Press Secretary; Deborah L. Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator, Mark Zuckerman, Minority General Counsel; James Kvaal, Minority Legislative Associate /Education; Joe Novotny, Minority Staff Assistant/Education; and Brendan O'Neil, Minority Legislative Associate/Education. Chairman McKeon. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness will come to order. 2 We're meeting today to hear testimony on H.R. 1992, the Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001. I'm going to limit the opening statements to the chairman, the ranking minority member, and a designee from each side. Therefore, if other members have statements, they will be included in the hearing record. With that, I ask unanimous consent for the hearing record to remain open 14 days to allow member statements and other documents referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES I want to welcome our witnesses here today and thank them for taking the time to appear before the Subcommittee. I also want to thank Representative Isakson for introducing H.R. 1992, the Internet Equity and Education Act of 2001. As Co -Chair of the Web-based Education Commission, he took a lead in discovering regulatory and statutory impediments to expanding access to higher education programs through the Internet, especially for non-traditional students. In addition, he has provided a great deal of leadership to this committee, and it is great to serve with him. I appreciate the work that he does on the Subcommittee and the Full Committee. In the early 1990s, Congress and the administration enacted a number of reforms aimed at fighting abuses in our federal financial aid programs. Examples of these abuses include correspondence courses that offer little value to the student, or recruitment practices in which bounty hunters were paid on a per head basis to bring students into a particular school. In order to end these abuses, Congress and the administration may have ultimately imposed a straightjacket on all of higher education where handcuffs on a few bad actors may have sufficed. This legislation we're considering today will remove the straightjacket while maintaining program integrity and implementing some of the recommendations of the Web-based Education Commission. First, it will remove the burden of the "12-hour rule." Under the 12-hour rule, institutions are required to keep literally hundreds of thousands of additional attendance records every year, just to show that their students attended certain types of work sessions. This legislation does not eliminate the safeguards that exist in the law under the 12-hour rule. Rather, it would hold programs for non-traditional students, which do not meet on a standard quarter or semester basis, to the same standard as their more traditional counterparts. 3 Second, it makes exceptions to the 50 percent requirement by allowing a limited number of institutions to offer more than 50 percent of their courses by telecommunications or to serve more than 50 percent of their students through telecommunications courses. Eligible schools will have to be already participating in the student loan program and have student loan default rates of 10 percent or less for the three most recent years. Third, H.R. 1992 helps address some of the confusion regarding incentive compensation provisions. Under current law, an institution may not compensate an individual either directly or indirectly for the enrollment of students in an institution. In one recent instance, an institution was fined $187 million for violating this provision; and as a result, the institution was forced to close and to put approximately 9,000 students on the street. We've been told that schools have little guidance in complying with this provision. In cases where guidance has been issued, it often conflicts with or contradicts guidance that has been issued to a different institution. In other words, schools truly don't know if they are in violation of the law or not. The legislation we're considering will allow reasonable business practices, while continuing prohibitions that prevent potential students from being taken advantage of. It is rare when all sectors of higher education agree on an issue. However, there is a clear consensus that the incentive compensation issue needs to be fixed, and that it needs to be fixed sooner, rather than later. Finally, distance education provides a tremendous opportunity to greatly expand access to postsecondary education to those who may otherwise be unable to participate. So it would be a shame to waste this potential because of outdated notions and regulations. Basically, what we're really trying to do is play catch-up with what's happening in the real world. This legislation provides a needed first step to ensuring that a postsecondary education is available to all who want to pursue it. At the same time, it does not diminish or undo needed integrity provisions in the law. In closing, I want to thank the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee, Mrs. Mink, for her work on this legislation. This truly has been a bipartisan process. As we go forward with this process, I look forward to working with all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to increase access to higher education for all Americans. I now yield to the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee, Mrs. Mink, for the purpose of making an opening statement.