Growing Pains

The enthusiasm of groups such as IAVA and MOAA – which is one of 35 organizations in the Partnership for Veterans’ Education, a coalition that joined forces several years ago to urge a new and improved GI Bill – is not without its caveats. In the first year of benefits delivery under the new law, some shortcomings and faults have been revealed.

For one thing, implementation of the existing law was a challenge, and the VA had trouble delivering many of the benefits on time – a fact acknowledged by Keith Wilson, the VA’s director of Educational Benefits. “We knew out of the gate, when the legislation was enacted,” said Wilson, “that in order to begin paying benefits on time by law – which was Aug. 1, 2009 – we needed to cobble something together that would allow us to pay the benefit. Our existing systems at the time did not support this payment structure. We had no way of taking into account the tuition and fees, the different payments to different entities, all of those types of things. So we put together an interim payment and processing system.” Given a boost by funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the VA is now on track to have an automated process in place for educational benefits by the end of calendar year 2010.

Aside from the logistical problems at the VA, some provisions of the law have come to be regarded as unhelpful to certain categories of veterans. IAVA and MOAA have been at the forefront in examining the bill closely, discovering flaws, and proposing solutions – many of which have become part of a bill that has commonly come to be known as the Post-9/11 GI Bill 2.0 – proposed by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, one of only three U.S. senators to have received his college education through veterans benefits.

Embree is careful to point out that IAVA does not find blame with either legislators or the VA for these perceived shortcomings. “They got a great bill passed, and there were things that people didn’t foresee or didn’t expect to happen. The new GI Bill 2.0 that Sen. Akaka has recently introduced really just perfects a lot of the points that are already firmly somewhat established.”

The major provisions of S. 3447, the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Improvements Act of 2010, include the following:

• A broader inclusion of vocational training, apprenticeships, and on-the-job training programs. Currently, the law is worded in such a way as to appear to cover only programs offered by degree-granting institutions. As Embree pointed out, more than 70 percent of the veterans who took advantage of the post-World War II GI Bill used their benefits to attend such programs. “These are your electricians, your carpenters, your pipefitters, your teamsters,” said Embree. “These folks are so important to our economy.” According to Norton and the MOAA, this provision is the most important change that needs to be made to the Post-9/11 GI Bill – and it’s interesting to note that the very first GI Bill had to be amended in order to open the door for 5.6 million veterans to attend such programs. “Isn’t it ironic that history is repeating itself?” he said. “The new GI Bill covers only academic pursuits.”
• The inclusion of members of the National Guard and Reserve who were inadvertently omitted from receipt of benefits. As worded, the Post-9/11 GI Bill did not include a significant portion of National Guard and Reserve service members – namely those who served full-time stateside for the purpose of organizing, recruiting, training, instructing, or administering Reserve components, or those who served in support of contingency operations or in response to a national emergency such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
• Elimination of the complex calculation of tuition and fee caps on a state-by-state basis. The trouble is not only that the current program can inadvertently create inequity for private schools in places such as the District of Columbia, where there is an enormous gap between public and private tuitions; it also complicates the job of the VA’s claims processors and creates unnecessary delays. As Wilson explained, the state July-to-July fiscal cycle ensures that the VA is calculating its benefits just as many schools are determining their tuition and fees for the coming year. “The other complexity,” Wilson said, “is simply the fact that we have 53 different caps: the states, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. Taking into account that we provide benefits to hundreds of thousands of people, and that we’ve got literally millions of folks out there who are potentially eligible, getting them to understand what their benefit may or may not be with all of these different caps, and understanding how to apply caps to where they may or may not want to go to school, is very confusing.” Under the Akaka bill, the VA will pay for tuition and fees at all public institutions, and payments for private institutions will be pegged to a national average.
• Provision of a modified living stipend to students enrolled in distance learning/online education programs. “Right now, if you are in, say, the American Military University or the University of Phoenix and you’re in a full-time online program, you do not get a housing allowance,” said Embree. “This would create a housing allowance based upon half of the national average cost, roughly $650 a month for going to school on a full-time online basis.”
• Elimination of the need for veterans to choose between GI Bill benefits or Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) benefits. Norton pointed out the example of a well-known student, a Marine who was severely disabled by injuries in Iraq, who is attending one of the nation’s top law schools and, because of his disability, having his tuition paid under the VR&E program. Because concurrent receipt of GI Bill and VR&E benefits is not allowed, the student does not have his living expenses – in one of the nation’s priciest housing markets – covered by the government. “This is one of the things we would like to see,” Norton said, “that if you are using the Voc-Rehab program, you should be able to get the Post-9/11 GI Bill housing allowance.”

The full provisions of S. 3447 are available in many places online, including the Library of Congress’ THOMAS website.

On July 21, 2010, the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs held a hearing on the proposed legislation, at which Keith Wilson spoke on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs. While pointing out that some of the proposals would trigger PAYGO costs, and deferring or delaying a response on two of the provisions, the VA raised very few objections to the proposals of the bill, but asked that – given the difficulties it has had in accommodating the number of claims thus far – the provisions, if passed, go into effect no earlier than August 2011.

“Generally speaking,” Wilson said, “and I’m talking in very broad strokes here, there are a lot of things that we are encouraged about concerning the direction the bill is going. There are some technical issues that we continue to work with the congressional staff on in terms of making sure it works, and works smoothly, for the students.”

 

A Total Force GI Bill

As much as it improves upon the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the 2.0 version still doesn’t provide what MOAA and the Partnership for Veterans’ Education proposed several years ago: the Total Force GI Bill. “The Montgomery GI Bill still exists, so there needs to be a way to either sunset that program or integrate it with the Post-9/11 law,” said Norton. “There’s no reason to have two full-up GI Bill programs operating alongside each other. That’s crazy and confusing for veterans. It’s a pain in the neck for the government, for the VA, and for schools to try to sort out who is entitled to what. And it’s really difficult for young men and women getting out of the service. If they already have the Montgomery GI Bill, they must make an irrevocable choice between either that one or the new one.”

For now, Embree said, the Akaka bill would mark a huge improvement in the Post-9/11 GI Bill and open doors of opportunity to thousands of eager veterans.

“It’s so important to employment,” he said, “because this is giving folks an opportunity to get back into the workforce, get better educated, with the licensing and certifications they need, the professional schools and the colleges. It gives them all the options … now they might come out [of the military] and say, ‘Well, you know what? I can’t get the GI Bill coverage for that, so I might as well go to college and study something I don’t necessarily feel that passionate about.”

Mujica-Parodi, meanwhile, is one of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been able to pursue their passion with the help of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. “One of my goals is to leverage my military experience and also leverage this business experience,” he said. “Like anyone else, I would like to run my own business.” He envisions a future helping corporations enter emerging markets in countries such as Nigeria or Afghanistan.

Mujica-Parodi has no doubt he’ll be able to pull it off, now that Kellogg has helped him to understand what he brings to the working world. “I think there’s a direct link between my military skills and my business skills. The experiences I and other veterans bring to the table are absolutely valid and worthwhile. Could I explain that a lot better now? Yes. Absolutely.”

 

This article was first published in The Year in Veterans Affairs and Military Medicine: 2010-2011 Edition.