UNIVERSITY CORNER: UMUC
A: We have over 60,000 active duty servicemembers and veterans that go to school at UMUC, so we’re always tracking trends and looking at ways in which we can better serve this population with such challenging lives. The students are more and more concerned about quality and making sure the education they receive is going to serve them well, both in terms of enhancing their military careers as well as when they transition from the military into the civilian world. So they’re asking a lot more questions these days about regional versus national accreditation and specialized accreditation—they want to make sure that the courses they take are actually going to count toward other degrees.
I’m proud to say UMUC has the highest level of accreditation you can get, regional accreditation. When they have a bachelor’s degree from us, they know they can probably get into any quality graduate program or carry on with graduate programs with us.
Q: Yes, I’ve heard about students being upset with a school or themselves in taking courses that they can’t get credit for at other schools.
A: Absolutely. That’s why I think the military students are becoming much wiser consumers about making sure the time they spend and their tuition assistance dollars, or their GI Bill, is in fact going to be an investment for them in the long term.
Q: Any particular reason they’re becoming more aware? Are they reading about it online?
A: Because they’re hearing some horror stories about credits that aren’t transferring, and they don’t have time to waste. They need to position themselves for promotions in the military as well as for corporate or government positions in the future, so they’re thinking about if these degree programs are going to benefit them long term, and if employers will recognize the credentials they’re coming out with. The landscape of higher education has changed so much that it’s really very confusing for the students. They don’t understand the difference between regional and national, and that regional is the highest accreditation you can get. The other thing that’s happening is the poor economy focuses their attention, too. They know the job market is very tight. When they invest their time and dollars, including for their spouses, they need to make sure that the credentials that they come out with will serve them in 20 and 30 years, not just today.
Q: Are you seeing any increases in queries or applications from military students, maybe because of the new GI Bill?
A: Absolutely. We’ve had lots of inquiries from prospective students. I don’t have an exact number, but there’s been a significant increase because of the attention paid to the new Post-9/11 GI Bill. We’ve had many requests from students currently in school; they’re taking courses, and they have a lot of questions about what would happen when they make the transition to the new GI Bill. We’ve hired a number of new military advisers who are experts in military benefits, so they can give precise information.
Q: Have you been doing any new outreach or promotions?
A: We redesigned our Website for the students, we’ve been actively promoting the fact that we’re part of the Yellow Ribbon program, and we have increased our advertising, just to let existing as well as prospective students know what they should be thinking about if they are going to be transitioning out of the military.
Q: How do you define what a “militaryfriendly” school is?
A: We’ve been serving this population for 62 years, so we have an infrastructure in place that provides support for these students 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We were the first university to run classes face to face in Iraq, for example. We have faculty and staff in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other locations around the world, in 26 countries. We have an infrastructure to support these students with face-to-face classes, as well as online. For schools that are new, where students may be signing up at a distance, this isn’t just about signing up for a program.
Q: Will the students need additional support?
We have advisers who mostly have prior military experience. They have had extensive training in the various military programs available, and also how to advise students when they are transitioning from tuition assistance, for example, to the GI Bill program. These are very technically detailed programs. A regular adviser on a traditional campus would not normally have this kind of information. At UMUC we evaluate military service and transfer credit within 48 hours. Many traditional institutions take [much longer]. It’s critical to do that quickly, otherwise these students may be taking courses they don’t need. ♦