A Pathway to Success

Written by Kathryn M. Snead and Clinton L. Anderson

SOC is cosponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), in cooperation with 13 other educational associations, the military services, the National Guard and the Coast Guard. SOC is funded by the Department of Defense through a contract with AASCU. The contract is managed for DoD by the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES).

Civilian colleges and universities serving through the SOC Consortium agree to maintain flexibility of programs and procedures to help offset the challenges inherent in a servicemembers’ mobility, geographic isolation from campuses and part-time student status.

Family members of active-duty servicemembers experience many of the same kinds of disruptions in pursuing a degree as do active-duty servicemembers. Because of that, many SOC institutions have pledged themselves to extend the same considerations to family members as they do to those on active duty.

In the recent call up of reserves, SOC worked with colleges and universities to refund tuition and fees they have paid for the semester they cannot complete, provide partial course credit, and allow the student-reservist the right to return to the institution upon completion of their active service. When there are instances in which students encounter enrollment or financial aid problems that they are unable to resolve themselves, SOC works for resolution assistance and student advocacy.

Each SOC college or university is committed to using the American Council on Education (ACE) “Guide to the Evaluation of Educational Experiences in the Armed Forces.” In addition, over 80 percent of SOC Consortium institutions also recognize the “ACE Guide” for military workplace learning.

Another criterion for SOC Consortium institutional membership is the evaluation and credit acceptance of one or more of the nationally recognized testing programs as validation of nontraditional learning acquisition. SOC institutions most widely accept and award credits for CLEP Subject Examinations, followed by CLEP General Examinations, DANTES Standardized Subject Tests (DSSTs) and Excelsior College Examinations.

While no data are collected from the full consortium of SOC institutional members regarding the actual amount of credit awarded based on the “ACE Guide” or through the use of standardized academic testing, data have been kept on military students participating in SOC Degree Network System, which includes the SOCAD (Army), SOCNAV (Navy), SOCMAR (Marine Corps) and SOCCOAST (Coast Guard) programs. In fiscal year 2005 alone, the 180 SOC Degree Network System colleges awarded a total of 727,858 credit hours. This averaged out to be 17.84 credit hours toward the completion of an associate degree program and 21.61 credit hours toward the completion of a bachelor’s degree program for servicemembers. Blending learning achieved from military training and experience, coupled with academic testing, provides accelerated pathways to success for military students in their quest to achieve their educational goals in American colleges and universities.

In recent years, a number of military education issues have surfaced with potentially significant impact across the higher education community. Discussions of a restructuring the Montgomery GI Bill toward more inclusive and equitable GI Bill programs clearly impact us all. Hopefully the shared information and strong partnerships forged between higher education and the military services will help resolve these critical issues. ♦
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Kathryn M. Snead is president, Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, and Clinton L. Anderson is membership coordinator.

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