Carey to Neg-Reg Comm.: Don’t Limit Veterans’, Military Members’ Use of Earned Education Benefits
In public comment before the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking committee on Program Integrity and Institutional Quality today, NDC executive director Bob Carey encouraged the committee to reject burdensome regulations that unfairly penalize career colleges and non-traditional universities.
One of the most important rights of veterans and active-duty military members is the freedom to use their earned military education benefits as they see fit, Carey explained.
“[These are] earned educational benefit[s],” he said. “To then have the Department of Education and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs exercise what fundamentally looks like condescending paternalism towards us and say, ‘You can use your educational benefits here, you cannot use your educational benefits here, and this is how you have to use your educational benefits’—you are infantilizing military and veteran students.”
Carey pointed out that the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking committee is discussing rules that could limit online and remote learning options while the Department of Veterans’ Affairs is doing “the exact same thing but in a different way.” The duplicative process is “introducing more confusion.”
Career colleges and distance learning options provide flexible, tailored paths to higher education, which are crucial for veterans and military families. Enrollment in these programs has increased significantly in recent years, even while enrollment at conventional four-year institutions has fallen to the lowest levels in a decade.
“We seem to be penalizing the 95, 98 percent [of schools] that abide [by the rules], for the two to five percent that don’t,” Carey stated. “If things are really as bad as they say they are… where is the False Claims Act lawsuit? Where’s the prosecution, rather than going after students that are doing the right thing?”
Carey concludes that the Department of Education “needs to go back to the drawing board” to ensure veterans and military service members continue to have access to higher education options that meet their needs.
