On April 27, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that requires colleges and universities to inform all veterans of the exact costs of their education upon enrollment. Additionally, the order requires Veteran’s Affairs and the Department of Defense to investigate and eliminate any fraudulent scholarships or programs offered to veterans, to provide a centralized complaint system for veterans to voice their displeasures with abusive enrollment practices and to establish greater restrictions on aggressive recruiting of veterans by university officials.
The movement toward providing more assistance to veterans in higher education came about due to reports of many private and for-profit colleges targeting veterans specifically through the financial benefits they receive from veterans’ enrollment. Over the last three years, private and for-profit universities have accumulated $1.65 billion from the Post-9/11 GI Bill alone.
Some Portland State students with military aspirations strongly resent this treatment of veterans and believe this recent action on the president’s part to be long overdue.
“Personally, I think it’s disgusting that colleges would take advantage of people who serve our country like that. It shows that these colleges have no respect for people in uniform who give their lives for this country. And because their job is to protect the country, which includes the president, I think it’s only fair to protect them as well, and I’m glad to hear he is doing something about it,” said business junior Carly VanWhetten, who hopes to join the Marine Corps in the future.
VanWhetten expressed hope that colleges which engage in these practices would be forced to go public about their deception in the hope that a pattern can be found among the abusers and the problem fully eliminated.
Allen Roberts, Veteran Certification Officer at PSU and an Air Force veteran, explained that a trend has already emerged, as the main users of these practices have been private universities and for-profit universities. He cited the University of Phoenix as an example of an abuser.
“Private universities are definitely under the microscope. The U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs is completely cracking down to ensure that we’re all doing our jobs,” Roberts said.
Roberts said that PSU, as a public university, is entirely upfront with regard to its veterans and engages in no such deceptive practices. “We’re a public institution. There’s nothing that veterans get here that other students don’t. We’re being careful that we’re following the rules to a T,” he said.
The issue of veteran enrollment at universities has been a hot-button topic in Congress this year. In January, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (D–Ill.)proposed the Protecting Our Students and Taxpayers Act that would have completely stopped numerous for-profit colleges, including the University of Phoenix, from further involvement in federal aid programs for veterans. When Durbin proposed the bill, he said that such universities could claim up to 90 percent of their revenue from federal aid, and he wished to limit that number to 85 percent with the new bill. While the bill is still making its rounds in Congrees, it did raise awareness of the issue.
In February, the Senate released a report that detailed the actions of for-profit universities and how they have used their federal financial aid. It was revealed that most of the aid money goes toward marketing and recruiting veterans rather than teaching them. The report highlighted Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit university, and noted that it spent 60 percent of its federal funding of $563 million on marketing and profit in 2011. The Senate also emphasized that Bridgepoint has 1,700 recruiters on staff, as opposed to just a single job-placement counselor.
A White House press release issued on April 26—the day before Obama signed the executive order—explained the order’s official motivations.
“Since the Post-9/11 GI Bill became law, there have been reports of aggressive and deceptive targeting of service members, veterans and their families by educational institutions, particularly for-profit career colleges. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to address these issues, but the administration believes we must do all we can administratively to protect veterans from these deceptive practices by improving the quality of information and services that these schools must provide,” said the Office of the Press Secretary in the release.
Members of PSU’s military programs feel confident that this order will make a difference and that there will soon be a better higher education environment in the country for veterans.
“I’m ready to follow whatever guidance that President Obama provides in terms of recruiting on campus,” said Capt. Paul Kemper, of the Military Science division of Academic Affairs at PSU.