On August 16, the Department of Education (ED) invited eight selected partnerships between colleges and universities, non-traditional providers, and independent quality assurance entities to participate in the Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships (EQUIP) experiment. These partnerships will allow students to access federal student aid while participating in programs offered by non-traditional education providers, such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) and coding boot camps.
The EQUIP [http://blog.ed.gov/2015/10/educational-quality-through-innovative-partnerships-equip-expanding-access-to-high-quality-innovative-postsecondary-education/] experiment was created in October 2015 to help ED better understand “alternative education providers,” which have been on the rise in recent years. As stated in ED’s Federal Register notice, EQUIP is:
intended to encourage increased innovation in higher education through partnerships between the participating institutions and nontraditional providers in order to learn whether those partnerships increase access to innovative and effective educational programs, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds; assess quality assurance processes appropriate for non-traditional providers and programs; and identify ways to protect students and taxpayers from risk in this emerging area of postsecondary education.
Through EQUIP, ED is hoping to learn more about these new educational programs, their costs, the educational and employment outcomes for students who participate in them, and methods of measuring the quality of the experience for those students.
The eight selected partnerships are as follows:
- Colorado State University Global Campus and Guild Education (Quality Assurance Entity: Tyton Partners)
- Dallas Community College System and StraighterLine (Quality Assurance Entity: CHEA Quality Platform)
- Marylhurst University and Epicodus (Quality Assurance Entity: Climb)
- Northeastern University and General Electric (Quality Assurance Entity: American Council on Education)
- SUNY Empire State College and The Flatiron School (Quality Assurance Entity: American National Standards Institute)
- Thomas Edison State University and Study.com (Quality Assurance Entity: Quality Matters)
- University of Texas – Austin and MakerSquare (Quality Assurance Entity: Entangled Solutions and Moody, Famiglietti & Andronico, LLP)
- Wilmington University and Zip Code Wilmington (Quality Assurance Entity: HackerRank)
Each of the partnerships was selected based on five criteria: innovating to improve outcomes, equity and access, quality assurance, affordability, and student and taxpayer protections.
Currently under the Higher Education Act, institutions of higher education (IHEs) are not allowed to receive federal student aid for programs in which more than 50 percent of their content and courses are provided by an ineligible entity rather than the IHE. Under the experiment, however, the 50-percent cap has been removed, opening the opportunity for students (particularly low-income students) to receive federal student aid to participate in new programs while also allowing ED to evaluate the quality and efficiency of those programs.
The programs will be reviewed and monitored by the quality assurance entities (QAE) listed. These QAEs will evaluate the programs based on student outcomes, including learning and employment as well as management of the program. Additionally, each IHE’s accrediting agency will monitor its new program to ensure it is covered within the institution’s accreditation.
Jen Ortega serves as a consultant to EDUCAUSE on federal policy and government relations. She has worked with EDUCAUSE since 2013 and assists with monitoring legislative and regulatory proposals across a range of policy areas, including cybersecurity, data privacy, e-learning, and accessibility.