As I always do each morning, I check my email. What I found today was a nice email from Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, letting me know about the dangers of for-profit colleges. For-profit colleges, it is now known, account for a huge chunk of Post 9/11 GI Bill payouts, but oftentimes deliver a dismal learning experience and engage in questionable marketing practices.
Well — not to worry — because Paul and the boys at IAVA “Got Your Back” as they like to say, and they want to hear your story if you’ve been a target of deceptive marketing by one of these schools.
But wait… wasn’t there an improvement act passed to the Post 9/11 GI Bill a couple years back? Let’s check the memory hole…
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is encouraged by the Chairman’s discussion draft of S. 3447, the “Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvement Act.” This discussion draft of S. 3447 will improve the New GI Bill and ensure that all student veterans have access to the most generous investment in veterans’ education since World War II. By simplifying and streamlining the administrative rules, S. 3447 would enable the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to process GI Bill claims in a timely manner. S. 3447, which we have come to call the “New GI Bill 2.0,” is a comprehensive effort to address the concerns of tens of thousands of student veterans and their families by:
• Offering valuable job training for students studying at vocational schools
• Granting National Guardsmen who respond to national disasters full GI Bill credit
• Providing living allowances for veterans in distance learning programs
• Simplifying and expanding the tuition benefit
• Including a book stipend for active duty students
IAVA is proud to endorse this legislation, contingent upon the following improvements being included in the bill. We therefore have included several simple and important technical recommendations we would like to see addressed in the August mark-up.
[…]
IAVA Technical Recommendations: A student veteran pursuing a degree through a distance program should qualify for a living allowance based on the zip code of his or her residence. Or, at the very least, the living allowance should be set at the lowest Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) rate for an E-5 pay grade, with dependents. This adjustment would be an increase of about $140 over the currently purposed rate.
Let me translate. It was Congress, pushed by IAVA who brought on these predators. Before this act, a veteran had to attend a traditional university to get the living stipend. IAVA would like you to forget that they helped push legislation that the for-profit college industry was so happy to see come to fruition.
But the internet never forgets.