Interesting Policy Reads: Costs Associated with Online Education, Business Compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act, and Tech in the Classroom

With our "Interesting Policy Reads" blog posts, the EDUCAUSE Policy Office highlights recent articles on federal policy issues and developments that are directly relevant to members or provide insights on higher education policy in general.

• Ending Tuition Unfairness for Online (and Part-Time) Students, Inside Higher Ed, August 28, 2019. (Southern Utah University is advancing efforts to decrease tuition prices for online and part-time students in an attempt to attract nontraditional students and balance per-credit prices between full-time and part-time students.)
• Advocacy Groups Ask 2020 Democrats to Pledge to Restore Net Neutrality, The Hill, August 26, 2019. (An alliance of advocacy groups have launched a web petition asking 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to sign a net neutrality restoration pledge seeking to reinstate 2015 Federal Communications Commission [FCC] rules and encourage the politicians to refuse campaign donations from telecom executives and lobbyists.)
• Consumer Groups Seek to Defend California Data Privacy Law, Axios, August 26, 2019. (Consumer groups have written a letter to California lawmakers urging them to keep the range of new consumer protections included in the California Consumer Privacy Act after other entities have pushed to weaken the law.)
• ASU Looks Overseas with New Spin-Off, Inside Higher Ed, August 27, 2019. (Arizona State University has created a new company partnership, Cintana Education, to work with private nonprofit universities in other countries to increase the quality and size of their academic programs in response to rising demand for higher education.)
• The Messy Conversation Around Online Cost and Quality, Inside Higher Ed, September 4, 2019. (A new study asking educational professionals about the intersection of cost and quality of online education reveals that while most agree that online programs create an alternative revenue source for universities, beliefs on the how quality is defined for these programs differs.)
• Schools Pushed for Tech in Every Classroom. Now Parents Are Pushing Back. The Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2019. (As more schools integrate the use of technology in classroom learning, parents worry about decreased performance scores and the effects of increased screen time on their children.)
• Google Is Fined $170 Million for Violating Children's Privacy on YouTube, The New York Times, September 4, 2019. (Google has agreed to pay a sizeable fine and make changes to protect children's privacy on YouTube. Regulators accused the website of violating the Children's Online Privacy Act by illegally gathering children's data without parental consent. Some praise the disciplinary actions, while others do not believe it is enough.)
• Businesses across the Board Scramble to Comply with California Data-Privacy Law, The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2019. (The California Consumer Privacy Law goes into effect in January 2020, pushing all types of businesses with activity in the state to get creative with new compliance efforts for customer data collection.)
• The Global Landscape of Online Program Companies, Inside Higher Ed, September 10, 2019. (To better understand the multitude and complexity of online education businesses, global education market intelligence company HolonIQ released a dataset on online management program companies' scopes of work and activities.)

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Kathryn Branson is an Associate with Ulman Public Policy.