Cochise College is one of 13 higher education institutions in Arizona now approved to participate in the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements.
The National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) is a national initiative to create interstate reciprocity in the regulation of postsecondary distance education. It is intended to make it easier for students to take online courses through institutions based in other states.
“SARA is an idea whose time has come,” said David Longanecker, president of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), in a 2013 news release. “Today, online learning is a major part of higher education, and it requires a quality assurance process that’s unbound by state lines. SARA is designed to achieve multiple goals: to effectively protect customers; to reduce the cost of often redundant regulatory compliance (in terms of both dollars and time); and to increase the quality, comparability and effectiveness of regulatory oversight and of the distance courses we offer our students.”
SARA is administered across the U.S. in participating states, districts and territories under four regional education compacts. Arizona’s SARA Council is recognized as the State Portal Agency (SPA) by W-SARA, the SARA partner for the Western region.
Participation in the national SARA initiative is voluntary. As an approved SARA institution, Cochise College has reciprocity approval for distance education with other SARA approved states. The college must comply with a number of provisions developed by Arizona’s SARA Council, such as ensuring that online learning is appropriate to the institution’s mission and purpose, that the expansion of online learning is integrated into the college’s planning and evaluation processes, that online faculty are qualified and effectively supported, that the institution assures the integrity of its online course offerings, and more.
For more information, visit the Cochise College Virtual Campus website at www.cochise.edu/online or the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements website at nc-sara.org.