Schooled not scammed in military tuition assistance. Choosing the right education and training program for you. Part II

Read Part 1 here: https://rly.pt/3vqAffq

There is a lot of information out there on using your education benefits once you leave the military. But what if you want to get a jump on your education and training while you’re still serving? Which choice of schools is right for you?

“The most important thing you can do is choose your school up front very carefully,” said Aniela Szymanski, senior director for Legal Affairs and Military Policy at Veterans Education Success, a nonpartisan group that advocates for military-connected and Veteran students.

This is excellent advice whether you’re pursuing an education as a service member or Veteran. But if you’re in the military, there are important differences to consider in benefits, legal protections, service rules and other areas as you navigate the decision process.

Even though the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) screens and requires each school to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) before they are allowed to accept DOD Tuition Assistance (TA) dollars, that doesn’t mean they are all the same.

DOD’s list includes institutions from the public, nonprofit and for-profit sector. Most analysts would agree that the former two types of institutions tend to produce better student outcomes. But for-profits can be viable options, provided they meet your college and career goals and, based on the data, live up to their promises to you.

It’s true that some for-profit education institutions with large service member and Veteran populations have been fined, settled with or been shuttered by federal or state regulators, according to a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee report begun in 2012 and updated in 2015. Reasons for these sanctions included aggressive recruitment and debt-collection practices, falsification of job placement data and issuance of predatory loans.

A recently passed American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 includes a provision designed to close a legal loophole that allowed some of these abuses to take place, but it doesn’t take effect until 2023.

You can also find more than a few public and nonprofit institutions on the U.S. Department of Education’s “heightened cash monitoring” list, which means they face some type of risk of failure.

To help you evaluate institutions and their offerings, in part I: https://rly.pt/3vqAffq, of this two-part series, we reviewed which benefits and services are available and which questions you should ask before choosing schools (add link to part I here). Below, take advantage of free resources to verify school offerings, prepare to apply and find legal services if you’ve been misled or scammed.

Using Free Resources to Verify Offerings, Apply and Get Legal Help

1. Choose using an unbiased tools. Whether public, private nonprofit or private for-profit, most schools and training programs are competing for your business, and use some degree of marketing tactics to engage military audiences. How can you evaluate their claims and know which schools provide the best bang for your benefit dollar? According to Veterans Education Success and other sources, these tools — often used in combination — can help you choose:

DOD TA Decide: Billed as the first-of-its-kind resource for DOD TA participants, this tool uses data from the departments of Defense, Education and Veterans Affairs to assist you in comparing educational institutions. However, you can only see general evaluation criteria and DOD’s MOU with the school. Use it with VA’s comparison tool, below, to get more complete data. Details: TA Decide is at https://rly.pt/32NWS0R.

VA’s GI Bill Comparison Tool: Although this tool is aimed at Veterans, it contains cautionary warnings in the search results if a school settled with the Federal Trade Commission and/or is on the HCM list. It also contains 24 months of complaint data from Veteran students reflected in real-time results. We looked at one school with a cautionary flag on VA’s tool that also appears on DOD’s list. VA’s results show that 33 students had complained, mostly about tuition and fee charges. Another school on DOD’s list that appears on VA’s tool with a cautionary flag lists eight complaints. These related to financial issues, quality of education, recruiting and marketing practices, and grade policy. Details: Search the school name at https://rly.pt/2MiExUE and click details. Scroll down to view the number and nature of complaints.

U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard: Dig into this data to look at metrics such as how many students are paying back their school loans. If most students are paying back their loans, it’s fair to assume they earned a valid degree and found a well-paying job. If students are having trouble paying back loans or are defaulting, that’s a red flag. We put the name of an Arizona school with a VA cautionary flag into the “search by schools” field. Then, we clicked the tile to pull up the data. We scrolled down to click financial aid and debt down arrow. This school shows that even among the 28% of students who graduated, 38% were not making progress paying back loans. At another university in the same state, the results were flipped: Among the 61% of students who graduated, 38% were making progress in paying back their loans. You can also review graduation rates, how much students earn two years after graduation (compare this to the cost of a degree), test scores and acceptance rates, and much more. A “compare” feature lets you assess groups of schools side by side. Details: Access this tool at https://rly.pt/32FE1Fc.

2. Take advantage of free test-prep services. Competing for limited slots at academic institutions can be stressful. DANTES offers you free access to webinars and libraries with tutorials, practice tests, ebooks and other resources to prepare you for a variety of tests. These include college entrance exams, tests that help you earn college credit for military skills and professional certification exams. Details: Sign up for upcoming webinars at https://rly.pt/2RO2xlp.

3. Get assistance if you were misled, scammed or earned a degree from a sanctioned schools. According to Veterans Education Success, all is not lost if your school lied to you, took out loans in your name, signed documents without alerting you or closed. The organization offers free legal services and shows you where to submit complaints to federal and state watchdogs. Details: View available services at https://rly.pt/3nh4bYl and request assistance at https://rly.pt/3tN4Y62.

Learn more

In part I of this article: https://rly.pt/3vqAffq, review which benefits and services are available and which questions you should ask before choosing schools: LINK.

Access links to the 2012 Senate HELP investigation, hearings and reports: https://rly.pt/3esQT7c.

Contact Veterans Education Success: https://rly.pt/2PgUqgl.

Find Military One Source Education Resources: https://rly.pt/3xmfEdM.

Read the “90/10 Loophole Closure Is On its Way to the President’s Desk!”: https://rly.pt/3epPJtb.

Read the DOD Office of Financial Readiness article on how service members can pay for education: https://rly.pt/3ndwKpT.

Read The Century Foundation report, “The Education Department Should Review these Risky Schools”: https://rly.pt/3neVFsS.