The Other 85 Percent

More on the GI Bill – shouldn’t our vets be allowed to decide where they go to college?

January 28, 2009 | Filed under: Capella, Capella University, GI Bill, Inside Higher Ed, Mike Offerman, The Other 85 Percent, academics, armed forces, college, college degree, continuing education, distance learning, elearning, higher education, military, online education, online learning, online university

I first wrote about the problems in the 21st Century GI Bill last July. Well, the problems are finally getting some media attention.

When asked by the reporter for Inside Higher Ed who wrote this recent article why I thought that the bill included the disincentive for distance education, my response is that I don’t know.  But I fear that the idea of making veterans attend on-campus programs may be grounded in a romantic notion of what happened after World War II, with the original GI Bill, when veterans and their families lived in Quonset huts on campuses around the country.  That was a wonderful thing, but the world has changed in the last 60 years.

In the end, the real problem with this bill is not about the impact on online colleges and universities.  Rather, the problem is in limiting the options of veterans who served our country so well.  These men and women have demonstrated through their enrollment choices that they like online learning, but are now told that they will receive less support if they learn online.

This is just plain bad public policy.  And the only thing worse than being either the veteran with limited options or the affected online college or university is to be one of the people at the VA who has to try to make sense of this policy and explain it to the veteran.  To try to explain to two veterans why one will get less than her neighbor because she studies online while the neighbor drives to a campus.  That will not be an easy job.

Please let me know your thoughts. Feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

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