WASHINGTON -- When Congress moved in 2008 to sweeten tuition payments for veterans, it was celebrated as a way to ensure that military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could go to college at no cost and to replicate the historic benefits society gained from the GI Bill after World War II.
Now, a year after payouts on the Post-9-11 GI Bill started, the huge program has turned into a bonanza of another kind for the many commercial colleges in the U.S. that have seen military revenues surge.
More than 36 percent of the tuition payments made in the first year of the program - a total of $640 million in tuition and fees - went to for-profit colleges, like the University of Phoenix, according to data compiled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, even though these colleges serve only about 9 percent of the overall population at higher education institutions.
As the money flows to the for-profit university industry, questions are being raised in Congress and elsewhere about their recruitment practices, and whether they really deliver on their education promises.
Some members say they want to place tighter limits on how much these colleges can collect in military benefits, a move certain federal officials say they would welcome.
These questions come as the for-profit education industry is under increased scrutiny, with the Department of Education proposing regulations that would cut off federal aid to colleges whose graduates have extremely low loan repayment rates.
Amid this debate, the industry's powerful lobbying forces are pushing for even more, including a change in the law that would allow veterans who sign up exclusively for online classes to also get government housing subsidies, even if they live at home, which would make online education even more attractive.
With their multimillion-dollar advertising and recruitment campaigns, these colleges have pitched themselves as a natural choice for veterans and active-duty personnel, given their extensive online class offerings, accelerated degree programs and campuses spread across the nation, including near many military bases.
"We offer the flexibility and career focus they want," said Bob Larned, the executive director of military education at ECPI College of Technology, a Virginia institution with a major online program and campuses in Raleigh, Charlotte and elsewhere in the Carolinas that collected $16 million in GI Bill benefits in the first year.
Active-duty personnel are eligible for free tuition, which explains why the for-profit colleges have received about $200 million in Department of Defense tuition reimbursement benefits and fees in the past year, mostly for online classes, in addition to money collected from the GI Bill.
But high dropout rates at some of these colleges, difficulty in transferring credits, higher tuition bills than at public colleges and skepticism from some employers about the value of the degrees are all creating unease among some in Congress.
Robert Songer, a retired Marine colonel who is the lead education adviser at Camp Lejeune, said some of the for-profit colleges hounded active-duty personnel there.
"They are very easy targets, especially because many of them have never had anyone in their families go to college," Songer said. "All they hear from these schools is, 'This won't cost you a thing.'"
