State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA)

The National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) is a private nonprofit organization [501(c)(3)] that helps expand students’ access to educational opportunities and ensure more efficient, consistent, and effective regulation of distance education programs. 

Recognizing the growing demand for distance education opportunities, higher education stakeholders – including state regulators and education leaders, accreditors, the U.S. Department of Education, and institutions – joined together in 2013 to establish the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (SARA), which streamline regulations around distance education programs. 

In partnership with four regional compacts, NC-SARA helps states, institutions, policymakers, and students understand the purpose and benefits of participating in SARA. Today, more than 2,200 institutions in 49 member states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands all voluntarily participate in SARA. 

See lower-right-hand corner for SARA link: https://www.gettysburg.edu/?ts=1656080062577 

Consumer Protection 

Provisions of SARA Policy, including those for consumer protection and the resolution of complaints, apply to interstate distance education offered by participating SARA institutions to students in other SARA states. Only those complaints resulting from distance education courses, activities, and operations provided by SARA-participating institutions to students in other SARA states come under the coverage of SARA. Complaints about a SARA institution’s in-state operations are to be resolved under the state’s normal provisions, not those of SARA. 

SARA consumer protection provisions require the home state, through its SARA State Portal Entity, to investigate and resolve allegations of dishonest or fraudulent activity by the state’s SARA-participating institutions, including the provision of false or misleading information. 

Examples of consumer protection issues that may arise in regard to alleged fraudulent activity, violations of SARA policies, or more general complaints about improper activities include, but are not limited to: 

  • Veracity of recruitment and marketing materials;
  • Accuracy of job placement data;
  • Accuracy of information about tuition, fees, and financial aid;
  • Complete and accurate admission requirements for courses and programs;
  • Accuracy of information about the institution’s accreditation and/or any programmatic/specialized accreditation held by the institution’s programs;
  • Accuracy of information about whether coursework meets any relevant professional licensing requirements or the requirements of specialized accrediting agencies;
  • Accuracy of information about whether the institution’s coursework will transfer to other institutions; and
  • Operation of distance education programs consistent with practices expected by institutional accreditors (and, if applicable, programmatic/specialized accreditors) and/or the C-RAC Guidelines for distance education.

Complaint Resolution Process through SARA 

  1. Complaints against an institution operating under SARA policies go first through the institution’s own procedures for resolution of grievances. Allegations of criminal offenses or alleged violations of a state’s general-purpose laws may be made directly to the relevant state agencies.
  2. Complaints regarding student grades or student conduct violations are governed entirely by institutional policy and the laws of the SARA institution’s home state.
  3. If a person bringing a complaint is not satisfied with the outcome of the institutional process for handling complaints, the complaint (except for complaints about grades or student conduct violations) may be appealed, within two years of the incident about which the complaint is made, to the SARA State Portal Entity in the home state of the institution against which the complaint has been lodged. That SARA State Portal Entity shall notify the SARA State Portal Entity of the state in which the student is located of receipt of that appealed complaint. The resolution of the complaint by the institution’s home state SARA State Portal Entity, through its SARA complaint resolution process, will be final, except for complaints that fall under the provision “g” below.
  4. While the final resolution of the complaint rests with the SARA State Portal Entity in the home state of the institution against which the complaint has been lodged, the SARA State Portal Entity in the complainant’s location state may assist as needed. The final disposition of a complaint resolved by the home state shall be communicated to the SARA State Portal Entity in the state where the student lived at the time of the incident leading to the complaint, if known.
  5. While final resolution of complaints (for purposes of adjudication of the complaint and enforcement of any resultant remedies or redress) resides in certain cases with institutions (complaints about grades or student conduct violations), or more generally with the relevant institution’s home state SARA State Portal Entity (all other complaints), the regional compact(s) administering SARA may consider a disputed complaint as a “case file” if concerns are raised against a SARA member state with regard to whether that state is abiding by SARA policies, as promulgated in the SARA Policy Manual. The regional compact may review such institutional concerns in determining whether a state under its SARA purview is abiding by SARA policies. Similarly, a complaint “case file” may also be reviewed by NC-SARA in considering whether a regional compact is ensuring that its SARA member states are abiding by the SARA policies required for their membership in SARA.
  6. SARA State Portal Entities shall report quarterly to NC-SARA the number and disposition of appealed complaints that are not resolved at the institutional level. NC-SARA shall make that information publicly available on its website. Such data will create transparency and can be used in determining whether a regional compact is ensuring that its SARA member states and those states’ institutions are abiding by the policies required for state membership and institutional participation in SARA.
  7. Nothing in the SARA Policy Manual precludes a state from using its laws of general application to pursue action against an institution that violates those laws.

See SARA Policy Manual 24.2 (12/20/24): https://nc-sara.org/resources/sara-policy-manual-242