Highlights From the DoD Worldwide Education Symposium
Written by Ted McKenna
MAE 2009 Volume: 4 Issue: 5 (September/October)
More than 2,600 attended the 2009 Worldwide Education Symposium in Atlanta in late July to hear speakers ranging from Keith Wilson, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Education Service, to Dr. Clifford Adelman, senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, to many top military officers in charge of education and other personnel issues.
Speakers naturally focused on the big changes afoot as a result of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which the VA’s Wilson noted required the hiring of more than 750 additional staff to handle processing of applications.
“About a year ago, I had the pleasure of running a sleepy operation called Education Benefits,” which mainly dealt with benefits from the Montgomery bill, said Wilson. “Obviously a lot has changed and it’s been a challenge. … It’s the biggest change in benefits since 1944.”
Mainly, the challenge for the VA has been the time frame for implementation—about 13 months between the signing of the new GI Bill into law and the start date for application for benefits. New information technology was needed within VA to handle the program, including a system for sending out checks, and Wilson said that the system appeared to be running well so far.
“There are unknowns, though,” Wilson said. While the VA estimates that applications for education benefits will increase 20 percent to 25 percent in the first year of the new benefits program, “we don’t know how many people will participate. Individuals in many cases are better off under other programs.”
Along with smooth processing of applications and disbursement of money, Wilson also noted the importance of communication about what the benefits are and how the program for providing the benefits is being rolled out, and addressing what seem to be some common misperceptions about the new bill.
These include the notion that it’s straightforward when it is actually quite complex, and that the new GI Bill’s benefits aren’t as good in some states as others, though in fact the bill is designed to provide free tuition in all states despite varying state public school tuition. There is also fear that colleges and universities will have to create “vetsvilles,” to accommodate the crush of military-related students flocking to campuses.
Don’t expect any housing shortages on campuses as a result of veterans, though, Wilson said. There may be a lot of veterans taking advantage of the new benefits, but the numbers won’t come anywhere close the level of participation in the first GI Bill following World War II, when virtually the entire U.S. military demobilized at the same time.
Attendees from the many schools around the country that cater to military students noted that the rules related to the new GI Bill still—at least in their opinion—required ironing out in various ways, including the lack of housing stipends for students enrolled in online coursework only. Overall, though, the prevailing spirit appeared to be one of optimism, as colleges and universities see increased interest in their programs from military students that they expect—or at least hope— will lead to increased enrollment.
Sessions held throughout the symposium covered a wide range of issues, including the creation of effective exams for awarding occupational credentials to servicemembers, overviews of DANTES programs like Troops to Teachers, efforts by colleges and universities to provide better on-campus or online counseling and other services to veterans and their families, advances in distance learning technologies and best practices, and much more.
Top in mind for many of the speakers and attendees, including educational services officers and specialists from around the world, was the need to improve the transferability of credits among schools as well as the overall success rate of servicemembers pursuing certifications or degrees of some type. The Institute for Higher Education Policy’s Adelman, for instance, called for better tracking of military-related students as they pursue their education, so that authorities are better able to understand where and how students earn credits, how credits are lost, what subjects military students favor and how they succeed in their education careers.
“Why do we need a map?” he asked. “Because we don’t see the trajectories. We don’t see where credits are earned, where they get lost. We don’t see the successes. The problem is like that of migrant labor families: There is nomadic behavior, part-year education, incomplete coursework and multiple locations and transcripts. Education counselors in and out of the military need better guidance with this.”
Among other solutions, Adelman suggested, why not require instant electronic transcripts for military students as a condition of federal aid? ♦
More information about the symposium and presentations by many of the speakers and panel participants may be found on the symposium’s Website, at www.ww09atlanta.com.