NC-SARA
Professional Licensure Disclosure
U.S. Department of Education regulation, 34 CFR 668.43 (a) (5) (v) requires institutions to provide proper notification to students as to whether courses and programs will meet the professional licensure requirements in states where students are located.
Hunter College - CUNY is a member of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA). State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements establish comparable national standards for institutions offering distance education towards professional licensure outside of their own state. This allows Hunter College to offer distance learning programs to residents of states other than New York.
Hunter College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. All academic programs offered by Hunter College are approved by the New York State Education Department. The Board of Regents in New York State (NYS) grants professional licensure/certificates to qualified candidates.
Hunter College academic programs have been designed to meet accreditation and licensure/certification requirements as well as prepare students to apply for licensure/certification exams in the State of New York. Licensing/certification requirements in New York may not be recognized as sufficient to obtain licensure/certification in any other state.
These disclosures are strictly limited to Hunter College’s determination of whether its programs, if successfully completed, would be sufficient to meet the licensure or certification requirements. The College cannot provide verification of an individual’s ability to meet licensure or certification requirements unrelated to its educational programming. Such individual determinations are made by state licensing boards, and are fact-specific determinations.
Programs Leading to Licensure/Certification
At this time (Spring 2024), Hunter College does not offer any online programs which lead to professional licensure. As approved online programs begin admitting online students, professional licensure information will be listed here and on the program website.
Student Complaint Process
Under NC-SARA consumer protection rules, students have the right to lodge a complaint if the student’s experience in an online program is not as anticipated. Please note that NC-SARA complaints do not include complaints related to grades or student conduct violations, these complaints are lodged at the institutional level. Details on what consumer complaints and protections entail can be found in Section 4 of the SARA Policy Manual.
Out-of-state students enrolled in distance education must exhaust the Hunter College internal complaint process and the CUNY complaint process* before moving on in the SARA complaint process The NC-SARA complaint procedure can be found here.
*Decisions resulting from the Hunter complaint process may be appealed to CUNY, a complaint against a college in the City University system should be sent to:
City University of New York
Office of the General Counsel
205 East 42nd Street, 11th floor
New York, NY 10017
In the event that a complaint is not resolved at the institutional level, students may file a complaint with the following:
New York State Department of Education (NYSED) – Office of Higher Education
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 Portal Entity in the home state of the institution against which the complaint has been lodged.” (SARA Policy Manual, version 22.1, June 27, 2022, “4.5 Process for Resolving Complaints,” paragraph c, p. 45.)
Middle States Commission on Higher Education (Hunter College’s accrediting body)
The United States Department of Education requires institutions of higher education to provide prospective and current out-of-state students with the contact information of the state agency or agencies that handle complaints against postsecondary education institutions offering distance learning within that state. Find the list here. Information listed for each state is subject to change and will be updated each semester.