Mount Vernon Nazarene University was recently welcomed as an institutional participant in The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) initiative. The SARA initiative is an agreement among member states that establishes comparable national standards for interstate offering of postsecondary distance education courses and programs. It is intended to make it easier for students to take online courses offered by postsecondary institutions based in another state.

Marshall A. Hill, executive director of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements, congratulated and welcomed MVNU as an institutional participant in SARA.

“A great deal of work has gone into the development and implementation of the SARA initiative," he said. "We know that SARA will increase administrative efficiency and lower the costs of obtaining authorization to provide postsecondary distance education in states that join. These benefits will result in increased access as institutions like yours are able to more widely distribute academic programs and accept enrollments from students in many other states.”

Randie Timpe, assistant to the president for effectiveness and planning at MVNU, explained that as each state has their own authorization process and application, the process can take up to 18 months and can include costly fees.

“An institution that becomes an SARA participant then can speed the process and decrease the expenditure of seeking individual state authorizations,” Timpe said.

SARA is a completely voluntary initiative that benefits institutions that offer online or other distance education courses to students in several states because that institution may have less paperwork and fewer fees to pay. This allows institutions to enroll students in distance programs without having to go through the individual authorization process, which can be time-consuming and costly.

--Mount Vernon Nazarene University