By Amaani Lyle
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 12, 2013 – To increase stewardship and optimize
service members’ educational experiences, Defense Department officials
have developed a multifaceted quality assurance program to improve
tuition assistance, the assistant secretary of defense for readiness and
force management said on Capitol Hill today.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense
subcommittee, Frederick E. Vollrath said new policies will mandate that
all participating institutions sign a memorandum of understanding
requiring them to adhere to specific principles of excellence.
“This will help end fraudulent recruitment on our military installations
… address other predatory practices by bad academic actors and provide
students with personalized, standardized forms outlining costs,
financial aid and outcome measures,” Vollrath said.
The
memorandum also requires that military students have access to a
streamlined tool to compare educational institutions using key measures
of affordability and value through the Veterans Affairs Department’s
E-benefits portal.
Vollrath told the panel that 3,100
institutions and more than 1,050 subcampuses have signed the memorandum
of understanding. He also reported that DOD is part of an interagency
team that is finalizing the development and implementation of a
centralized complaint system to resolve concerns raised by students
receiving tuition assistance.
The departments of Veterans
Affairs, Education, Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
will have access to all complaints as they work to resolve issues, he
added.
“Underpinning this effort is the requirement that all
post-secondary education participating in the Tuition Assistance Program
must be accredited by an accrediting body recognized by the U.S.
Department of Education,” Vollrath said.
Meanwhile, he said, the
Defense Department will continue to provide lifelong learning
opportunities through off-duty, voluntary education programs, noting
that each year, a third of service members enroll in post-secondary
education courses leading to associate’s, bachelor’s and advanced
degrees. In fiscal year 2012, more than 286,000 service members enrolled
in nearly 875,000 courses, Vollrath reported, and more than 50,000
service members earned degrees or certifications.
“All service
members enrolled in the voluntary education programs are nontraditional
students, in that they attend school part-time while they are off duty,
taking, on average, only three courses per year,” Vollrath said. But
military missions, deployments and transfers frequently impinge on the
troops’ ability to continue their education, he noted, adding that this
often results in breaks of months or, in some cases, years between
service members taking courses and completing their degrees.
With
that in mind, colleges and universities are delivering more classroom
instruction online as well as on military installations around the
world, Vollrath added.
“There are no geographical confines,” he
said. “Courses are offered aboard ships, submarines and at deployed
locations such as Afghanistan -- this is the kind of instruction our
service members want.”
Vollrath also said more than 76 percent of
the courses taken last year were delivered through distance learning.
Still, he stressed, the rigors of military service will not relax strict
requirements in place for participating service members.
“Prior
to enrolling in courses using tuition assistance, service members must
establish an educational goal and a degree plan,” he said. An
educational counselor must review tuition assistance requests outlined
in the approved degree plan. Service members who either fail or do not
complete the course must reimburse the Defense Department for tuition
assistance received for that course.
“Service members failing to
maintain a 2.0 undergraduate grade-point average or a 3.0 graduate GPA
must pay for all courses until they raise their GPA sufficiently,”
Vollrath explained. “Our voluntary education program is a key component
of the recruitment, readiness and retention of the total force, an
all-volunteer force.”
To further illustrate the value of the
education program, Vollrath cited an example of retired Air Force Senior
Master Sgt. Eric Combs, who entered the military with a general
education development certificate before earning his Community College
of the Air Force and bachelor’s degrees with tuition assistance while on
active duty. After retirement, he went on to earn his master’s degree
in education in 2005.
Upon his retirement, he participated in the
Troops to Teachers program and earned acclaim with his selection as the
Ohio Teacher of the Year in 2006. He now serves as a principal in the
public school system.
“The skills he learned and the education he
received while serving in the Air Force ultimately benefited him, the
Air Force and the nation,” Vollrath said.
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