State (USA) Licensing

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Most professional academics realize that an individual state licensed school of higher education meets or exceeds that states minimal requirements for licensing and that what another state requires is irrelevant. That scenario, however is rapidly changing.

The conflict between and among schools and states is not over whether they measure up to one state's criteria or anothers but whether they should be licensed in THAT state at all. The landscape has changed with the advent of distance education giants dealing on a national level in the USA since the 60's. Today, with more and more universities opting to teach students online, they are faced with the same dilemma distance educators faced when they set up satellite venues for courses, seminars, and retreats in states other than their own. It is an issue of licensing in each state coupled with a school desires to teach students online.

On the face of it, it seems fairly clear-cut. If a college offers a class in a neighboring state and the campus is located elsewhere, then the school should be licensed in that state as well. This has become the practice since the celebrated issues surrounding the nations original University Without Walls distance provider in early 2000 when several states wanted to know why they were not seeking a license to offer the college's courses in their states when the college had in fact been doing it for 30 years. The university quickly complied.

Schools considering online delivery of complete programs to students in other states must consider the ramifications of what they are about to undertake from a licensing standpoint. The question that remains is whether or not the school is operating without approval and thus illegally as the distance educators of old or are they able to claim that since it is online the education is taking place back at the campus? It seems that states will find a way to tweak it to be what the Academy suggests -- The class offered is where the student is taking it, not the campus and therefore a state license will be required.

There are several precedents that suggest this is may be the case.

The mutual fund industry, the insurance industry, the real estate industry, the transportation industry, and a host of other consumer active industries are required to have operating licenses in each state in the USA if they intend to do business in that state. As a university with a pro active online program begins to acquire more and more students from outside their on-ground base they would, it seems, be wise to license their school in each and every state they plan to recruit and offer online programs. It would be prudent for the student therefore, before enrolling, to ask the question of whether or not the target school they desire to attend online is licensed in their own home state.

What's a good number of students to determine the exact crossover point where a new school has to consider licensing in the particular student's state? If the university is not licensed but plans to offer online courses and programs, the number enrolled to trigger the requirement would be one (1).