No State Authorization Rule in 2017?

The U.S. Department of Education's rule regulating colleges that offer online education programs to students in other states may not go into effect until 2018. The department released a new draft of the rule in June and began collecting comments a month later. For the rule to have gone into effect next July, however, the department would have had to issue the final rule before Nov. 1. Speaking on background, a spokesperson said in an email that the department is still reviewing comments. The department is "committed to publishing final rules as soon as possible," the spokesperson said, adding that it never specified it would do so before the deadline.