50 State Approvals for Distance Education Programs

The Buckeye family can now get a little bigger… 

Today The Ohio State University was approved to offer distance education programs in Connecticut. This brings Ohio State’s total to 50 online-authorized states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This means more education opportunities for students located anywhere in the United States.

Achieving online program authorization and exemption in all 50 states has long been an institutional goal for Ohio State. In just one year, Ohio State’s authorization team has progressed from online program approval in only 20 states to nationwide approval.

“I could not be more proud of the progress we have made in one year,” Leslie Weibush, Manager of State Authorization, said. “We are excited that we can now offer our online programs to every student nationwide. This effort wouldn’t have been possible with the support from our state authorization program coordinator, Lisa Siefker, who stepped in and helped make this reality possible.”

Ohio State’s participation in the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) greatly accelerated the University’s authorization goal. Participating SARA institutions are authorized through reciprocity to offer distance education in all 36 SARA states. SARA participation is projected to increase to 46 states by the end of the year. 

Online approval in all 50 states is a great achievement for Ohio State, but there is still more work to do. The state authorization team continues to pursue approvals:

• For online programs with on-the-ground components, such as internships and clinical requirements
• For programs that have professional licensing components, such as nursing and dental hygiene programs
• For international programs

Stay up-to-date about state authorization by emailing the state authorization team to join their listserv.