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For-profit colleges are targeting student veterans in order to collect their GI Bill benefits.
Last week, President Obama signed an executive order aimed at protecting veterans from the aggressive recruiting and deceptive advertising practices that have become the trademark of many for-profit colleges.
“I’ve heard the stories,” he said, addressing a crowd of soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia. “They’ll say you don’t have to pay a dime for your degree. But, once you register, they’ll suddenly make you sign up for a high-interest student loan. They’ll say that if you transfer schools, you can transfer credits. But when you actually try to do that, you suddenly find out that you can’t. They’ll say they’ve got a job placement program when in fact they don’t. It’s not right. They’re trying to swindle and hoodwink you.”
The new initiative is designed to enhance transparency, requiring schools to disclose more information to prospective students.
For-profit colleges tend to seek out veteran students because of the “90-10″ rule that requires all higher education institutions to receive at least 10 percent of their revenue from non-education department sources. Because GI Bill funds count toward this 10 percent, one veteran student allows a school to have 9 other students whose tuition is almost completely covered by federal education grants and loans.
While the executive order does not address this issue, it does make it more difficult for colleges to exploit veterans for their benefits. Here are some of the changes:
Some organizations argue that the changes do not go far enough to protect student veterans. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) Founder and Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff recently commended the president for the order, calling it “a bold step,” but added, ”Our community needs the President and Congress’ continued leadership in the coming months to reform the 90-10 rule.”
According to a recent study commissioned by Iowa Democratic Senator, Tom Harkin, last year eight for-profit colleges received a quarter of all GI Bill benefits – about $636 million – and most had over a 50 percent dropout rate. The study also found it costs taxpayers more than twice as much to send a veteran to a for-profit school as to a public university.
President Obama’s executive order is a good first step, but additional changes will likely be necessary to ensure that for-profit schools are not taking advantage of student veterans.
Photo courtesy of Sean MacEntee.
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4 Comments
So what if you were taken advantage of what can be done to help you.
I finished my B.S. degree in IT with Capella University. Other than being expensive, it met the need in my life for finishing a degree while working a job that required a lot of travel. The tuition expense was very high, but I only needed two years to finish so it worked out. The one thing I looked for was a college that was regionally and nationally accredited, a good reputation as an higher learning institution, and specific technical courses. Capella University met all of these criteria. They also make the enrollment process very easy.
My misfortune was with USC and the VA who acted like they were completely out of touch with each other. The VA kept saying my tuition was 50% less than what USC was charging, and USC tried to push me into student loans instead of correcting the VA. On top of that I was given the extra VA/School award which would have zeroed out my tuition – but they screwed up the numbers so even that got lost. It seemed like the VA was almost pushing the school to force me to take loans.
Anyone heard of American Military University? Is it a good school? Or is it a waste of time and GI Bill?
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