Should States & the Feds Have Greater Oversight of Schools With Students Using GI Bill Benefits? (H.R. 4625)
Do you support or oppose this bill?
What is H.R. 4625?
(Updated December 3, 2019)
This bill — the Protect the GI Bill Act — would increase transparency and accountability among educational programs that receive Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) funding and give the federal government and state agencies greater authority to suspend schools from participating in the GI Bill program. It would require state educational agencies or their secretaries to determine whether educational institutions meet certain requirements regarding providing information to students before enrollment, transparency about tuition and financial aid, and more.
Subsequently, this bill would ban schools from GI Bill participation for misrepresenting themselves while marketing to, recruiting, and enrolling students. If an institution is determined to have carried out fraudulent or persistent recruiting tactics or engaged in “substantial misrepresentation” of its educational offerings, graduation rates, or graduates’ employability, it would be ineligible to enroll veterans with GI bill funding. It could also be subject to negative action by its accrediting agency, up to the loss of its accreditation.
This bill would also expand the conditions for full restoration of education benefits for students affected by schools’ closure or disapproval. It would also make schools, rather than students, responsible for repaying overpayments of tuition benefits from the VA under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
This bill would also expand veterans’ ability to use Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits by:
- Allowing military service members to transfer Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to their child wards and children ages 21-25; and
- Authorizing housing allowances under the Post-9/11 GI Bill during short periods of active-duty service.
Students receiving Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits would be required to verify their enrollment status to the VA.
If schools violate this bill’s requirements, State Approving Agencies (SAAs) would be able to flag or suspend new enrollments to them.
Argument in favor
Veterans pursuing higher education funded by GI Bill benefits should be able to rest assured knowing that the schools they’re attending will provide high-quality education. Making schools that don’t meet minimum education and transparency standards ineligible for GI Bill funding would go a long way towards that goal. It would also ensure that taxpayer dollars aren’t used to prop up undeserving educational institutions, such as unscrupulous for-profit institutions that lie to students and deliver subpar educations.
Argument opposed
This bill would restrict veterans’ ability to choose where they use their GI Bill benefits. Given that these servicemembers earned this benefit through service to their country, it’s unfair to restrict their educational choices. For-profit institutions are a valid educational choice that some veterans may want to avail themselves of, as they’re often quicker and more career-focused than traditional four-year colleges.
Impact
Veterans; veterans going to school with GI Bill benefits; institutions with veterans using GI Bill benefits; accreditation and other requirements for institutions with veterans using GI Bill benefits; State Approving Agencies (SAAs); VA; Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Cost of H.R. 4625
The CBO estimates that this bill would cost $117 million over the 2020-2024 period, and $148 million over the 2020-2029 period, to implement.
Additional Info
In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) introduced this bill to increase transparency and accountability among educational programs that receive VA funding. After this bill passed the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee with bipartisan support, Rep. Levin said:
“Veterans who are pursuing higher education should be set up for success, and that means providing the information they need to make smart decisions and holding schools accountable. This bipartisan package will help protect veterans’ GI Bill benefits, as well as the time and effort they invest into their education. I’m thrilled to see this legislation advance with bipartisan support and look forward to a vote on the House floor.”
Daniel Elkins, legislative director at the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, says changing for-profit schools’ eligibility for GI Bill dollars would lead to for-profit schools in general restricting veterans from enrolling. In Elkins’ view, this is unfair to veterans who have earned the education benefit, and who might be prevented from going to the institution they prefer.
After “Fail State,” a documentary highlighting the ways for-profit colleges have exploited veterans and vulnerable students, was screened at the Brooklyn Film Festival in 2017, Steve Gunderson, president of the Career Education Colleges and Universities (a membership organization of for-profit schools), called it “disappointing.” He added:
“Veterans continue to come to our schools because they can get an accelerated, focused, academic program that moves them quickly from the battlefield into the workplace in a career of their choosing. That would not happen if we [for-profit schools] destroyed veterans’ careers.”
This legislation passed the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee by voice vote.
Of Note: During an April 2019 joint hearing hosted by the House Committees on Education and Labor and Veteran Affairs at Grossmont College, House Higher Education and Workforce Subcommittee Chair Susan Davis (D-CA) said unscrupulous for-profit colleges consider veterans just leaving the service to be “dollar signs in uniform,” often using high-pressure tactics to enroll them, lying about job placements in industry or transfer credits to four-year colleges, and delivering substandard education ineligible for transfer credits.
At the April hearing, Robert Muth, Supervising Attorney of the Veterans Legal Clinic at the University of San Diego School of Law, which has supplied pro-bono legal assistance to hundreds of veterans military personnel, said that virtually all the clinic’s clients had been lied to during the for-profit institution recruitment process. According to Muth, schools lied about graduation rates, employment rates, transferable credits, and accreditation.
Under the Obama administration, the Education Department adopted rules threatening severe penalties to programs that mislead students about accreditation in 2011. However, under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Education Department has softened its stance on for-profit colleges, gutting a major Obama-era regulation that cut off funding to low-performing programs, halting the approval of new student-fraud claims brought against for-profit schools, weakening “borrower defense” for students of college or universities shut down for fraud and repealing regulations forcing for-profit colleges to prove that they provide gainful employment to the students they enroll in July 2019.
Media:
- Sponsoring Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) Press Release After Committee Passage
- CBO Cost Estimate
- Hartford Courant (Context)
- POLITICO (Context)
- PBS (Context)
Summary by Lorelei Yang
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