Policy Recommendations

Federal higher education policy has been historically indifferent to education quality, focusing instead on supporting academic research and reducing student costs. But the pandemic year underscored how that limited scope will be inadequate in the future. Students everywhere need learning opportunities that are both affordable and effective, and the use of technology will play a critical role. To help provide students the access and flexibility of high-quality distance education, the federal government should consider the following recommendations.

One thing driven home by the pandemic is the fact that many college students live on the edge of not being able to do their school work with the technology at hand.

Prior to the pandemic, many students did not have reliable access to broadband. This was especially true for low-income students and rural students.¹ So when courses pivoted online, these students struggled to log into their classes and complete their coursework. Even those who did have internet at home did not always have quality broadband. In a survey conducted by New America and Third Way, 22 percent of college student respondents reported having major challenges accessing stable and high-speed internet. This could amount to approximately four million students enrolled in higher education who did not have reliable connectivity across the country.² Without their college's free Wi-Fi, students made do with what they had or did not log in at all.

The federal government should ensure access to affordable, quality, reliable broadband for all college students.³ The shift to online showed that reliable broadband is an essential service and that access is unequal between demographic groups across the country.⁴ The federal government should continue providing stipends for families through the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program and expand stipend amounts.⁵ This would make strong, reliable, quality internet more affordable. It should also invest in increasing connectivity in rural areas that lack broadband infrastructure. This investment would create an environment where all students have access to the internet and can pursue their education online no matter where they live.

Many of these same students did not have the hardware to have a successful online experience during the pandemic. Without an adequate computer at home, students were left without a means to get their work done when campus computer labs and laptop loaner programs closed during the pandemic. For those students whose households did have a computer, many had to share it with others who were also in school or were working from home. Often, the technology families did have was outdated and could not keep up with the household's digital needs.

The federal government should also create a grant program for colleges providing technology tools to students who need them. Across the country, 44 percent of college students reported having to purchase a computer for their studies during the pandemic.⁶ Many colleges across the country used funds from several federal COVID response packages to provide students with tools like computers, webcams, and desks. We spoke with one college that had created a request form as part of registration that allowed students to flag if they needed any of these resources. The school plans to continue this after the pandemic. Had it not been for the availability of funds to help colleges provide students with technology tools, many students would have been left without the ability to continue their education during the pandemic.

The end of the pandemic will not bring the end for the need for technology tools to complete an education, even if many campuses go back in person. And without the proper technology, students will not be able to succeed in online education, regardless of how well faculty are trained or how a course is structured. The federal government should continue to provide institutions with funding to offer technology tools to students who need them and invest in broadband access so that digital learning has a strong environment to thrive in.

As the pandemic forced millions of students online overnight, one thing was glaringly apparent: our higher education data infrastructure could not keep up. Part of the challenge with ensuring quality in digital learning is a dearth of data on what is happening. Like much of federal higher education data, this lack of information leaves huge gaps in knowledge about what actually happens in online education. Without data, we cannot know how students are faring, where there are gaps, and how to support students and institutions to fill in these gaps. Data is key in knowing what needs work.

Most information on distance-education students is reported through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), where data are reported in aggregate. Reporting happens long after the fact; the effects of the pandemic will appear in the IPEDS data roughly three years after the start of the national emergency. Federal administrative data sources lack information on distance education status, race and ethnicity, and other student characteristics that could have helped measure the effects of the pandemic on students and on Black and Latinx students almost in real time. Those data would have informed policymakers who were working to develop solutions for students as the pandemic wore on. In fact, federal data did not even reflect the names or numbers of institutions that moved to remote learning in response to the pandemic, or when they reopened. Still, the effects of the pandemic will wear on for years to come, and it is not yet too late to improve those data.

One thing the Department of Education could do is add a flag in the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) that indicates whether a student conducted his or her education online and how many credits were online. Congress could also pass the College Transparency Act, which will help to plug many of the gaps in existing federal data that undermine the utility of those data.⁷ The Education Department should take what steps it can in the meantime to improve the collection and use of data, including beginning to gather information about federally aided students’ distance-education status and ultimately publishing information about those students’ successes in higher education.

There is a lot of research about what works in online education, but much of this research is based on small sample sizes, case studies, theory-based frameworks, student and faculty surveys, and broad conclusions based on experience.⁸ While that work is certainly valuable, there are still gaps in the literature, including empirical research on course modality, performance by student groups, and the effectiveness of quality online learning rubrics in practice. These would be well addressed by a federally funded research agenda.

A national research agenda could help shed light on student success within online course modalities, whether synchronous, asynchronous, or hybrid. Currently, the field can identify pros and cons to each modality based on practice and experience. While these practice and qualitative insights are valuable, there has yet to be empirical research on student success in synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid online classes. In other words, students have yet to be randomly assigned to an online course modality and tracked to see their outcomes. We do not know how students fare in each of these modalities compared to in-person learning and compared to each other.

Similarly, we know from practice that certain modalities can work better for particular student groups, but there is also little to no empirical research proving this. A national research agenda could help identify which modalities work better for student subgroups, such as first-generation students, students with dependents, or students of color, and why. This is particularly important considering the equity implications of online learning that emerged from the pandemic.

The literature also shows that digital learning can be comparable to in-person learning, but students can struggle due to lack of some of the support structures taken for granted in in-person learning. A national research agenda could tell us how structures and practices meant to support students in their online learning affect their success. In particular, this research should look at what practices and structures are most helpful to students of color, low-income students, first-generation students, students with dependents, and other vulnerable student groups.

Lastly, rubrics that purport to support quality in online learning should be empirically tested to see if they actually do support student success.⁹ The quality indicators in these rubrics can vary across sources and be confusing for practitioners. Like much of the research on digital learning, these rubrics are based on years of practice, learning theory, and evaluation on a small scale. However, there is minimal research quantitatively evaluating the effectiveness of quality indicators in these rubrics. A national research agenda supporting the empirical validation of such rubrics could help show which quality indicators are proven effective.

Higher education has a notorious lack of training and professional development for faculty to learn to be teachers. Instead, most faculty are experts in their field and are left to learn (or not learn) about what works in teaching through trial and error. Despite knowing the importance of certain aspects of digital learning, such as creating community, faculty do not have the training to know how to do this in their classes.¹⁰

This lack of training became uncomfortably clear during the pandemic. Students in our focus groups, for example, expressed dissatisfaction with how many of their instructors taught classes, citing lack of engaging material, little interaction with peers, and sometimes even reading off of PowerPoint slides. While faculty did their best in managing the quick pivot online and various consequences of the pandemic, many poor teaching practices existed in pre-pandemic in-person learning. These were only exacerbated by the lack of in-person interactions and structures during the pandemic, which made it more challenging for students to learn in these classes.

The federal government should consider providing colleges with grants to incentivize professional development in online teaching and learning. This type of grant program would support institutions in investing in the quality of their online course offerings and would also improve teaching and learning in in-person classes. While certain federal grant programs, like the Strengthening Institutions Program, include professional development in them, it would be worthwhile to create a grant only for this purpose.

This funding could be tied to faculty financial compensation. If instructors can show that student outcomes improve after their training, they could receive a raise or financial award. The professional development offered through this grant program should be based on existing teaching and learning research, as well as on findings from new work that could result from a federal investment in a national research agenda. Investing in faculty teaching and learning professional development could be another strategy for closing completion equity gaps in higher education.