The “Leave of Absence” (LOA) and extensions that allow for “Incompletes” were important factors in choosing an online education at NCU. Many of us work full time and have families. Leave of Absence enables us to remain enrolled and pursue our degree when disaster or illness strike, or other life events occur – and nobody is immune to these occurrences. Equally important to many students is the need to prevent burnout. The ability and freedom to regulate course start dates is one of the reasons we are doing our degrees online and it is essential to many of us who juggle extremely demanding jobs and personal obligations. When needed, a break between courses enables us to recharge out batteries, take care of business, enjoy our friends and families and return to our next course with motivation and vitality. The elimination of LOAs, Incompletes, and flexible start dates will effectively lead to students leaving the school because of the financial stress of repeating courses, and/or the inability to complete work in the required time frame and maintain the NCU pace, while working full time, and dealing with the other components of our lives. Many of us are wondering if this is by design? The discussion forum under the NCU topic “Changes at NCU” expresses the frustration, bitterness, and disappointment of individual students. We request that administration reads the postings. This petition reflects the protest of students as a group. There are no regulatory reasons why these policies are required, and they will create a hardship for many students who may be forced out of our degree programs. In order to be able to continue in our programs, to prevent losing the years of effort and hard work that we have invested programs, and to regain confidence in this institution - we are requesting that the new measures be reversed.