Because of protectionist regulations, North Carolina’s range of higher education choices is not as wide as it should be. But it’s not just the Tar Heel State that gums up the works with excessive red tape. North Carolina schools that want to offer their online courses to out-of-state students have had to navigate burdensome approval processes. In many cases, schools have decided it’s just not worth the considerable expense in terms of both time and money—thereby limiting options for students seeking online alternatives. But now there is a better way. The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) is an agreement among member states that establishes comparable national standards for interstate offering of online education.