National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA)
“Th
e State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements, commonly known as SARA, provides a voluntary, regional approach to state oversight of postsecondary distance education. When states join SARA, they agree to follow uniform processes for approving their eligible institutions’ participation. They also agree to deal with other states’ SARA institutions in a common way when those institutions carry out activities in SARA states other than their own.
SARA’s policies help protect students and provide benefits to both states and institutions carrying out distance education in multiple states. As of July 2019, 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are members of SARA. About 1,993 colleges and universities.”
Through the University of Montevallo’s (UM) state authorization and Alabama’s participation in the National Council on State Authorization and Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), all distance education and correspondence courses at UM are authorized by the state of Alabama and all other U.S. states, as all U.S. states now participate in either a state authorization, the NC-SARA and/or provide a student complaint process.
At this time, there should be no adverse consequences of relocating to any state where UM’s main campus is not located while enrolled at UM since all states now meet state authorization requirements under 34 CFR 600.9.
