VETERANS GROUPS STEP UP PRESSURE ON VA TO DENY G.I. BILL FUNDING TO FOR-
PROFIT SCHOOLS THAT EMPLOY DECEPTIVE MARKETING PRACTICES
Yale Law Clinic Study Argues VA Has Authority to Act
WASHINGTON, DC - Pressure is building on VA to step up its oversight of the GI Bill and protect veterans from consumer fraud by for-profit colleges. At the end of last week, most of the nation's largest veterans and military service organizations wrote the VA Secretary, requesting a 30-day task force to improve VA's oversight of the GI Bill and step up efforts to stop deceptive college recruiting. (Letter attached. The American Legion wrote a similar letter on separate letterhead and hand-delivered both letters to VA last week.)
These letters followed a report from Yale Law School's Veterans Legal Clinic (also attached) finding VA had failed to carry out its statutory obligation to deny GI Bill to schools engaged in deceptive recruiting practices.
Yale's conclusion that the federal statute - 38 USC 3696 - is crystal clear as to VA's authority runs counter to claims from VA that only State Approving Agencies can disapprove GI Bill for schools, a claim VA reiterated to the New York Times on Sunday and wrote to Congress, in a letter from the Undersecretary for Benefits, following Congressional calls last summer for VA to stop approving GI Bill benefits for nearly 2,000 questionable, unaccredited schools, including sex schools - exposed in a news report. A non-profit report, issued last Fall, found that 20% of VA-approved programs lack the necessary accreditation in fields where accreditation is needed to work.
At issue: $60 billion dollars in taxpayer-funded GI Bill benefits since the Post-9/11 GI Bill went into effect in 2009, with 7 of the 8 schools that receive the most GI Bill benefits under law enforcement actions for consumer fraud, according to a 2014 Senate Committee report, following a 2-year investigation.
The impact on veterans can be devastating. Their one shot at the GI Bill, and its promise of a successful transition to a civilian career and the American Dream, can be lost to consumer fraud. They are left without their GI Bill benefits, a worthless degree or no degree at all, and they are often left holding thousands of dollars in debt for student loans they did not authorize. Thousands of veterans have complained to VA about consumer fraud they faced at deceptive for-profit college chains. A 2012 Executive Order brought improvements at VA, including the online student complaint system and the GI Bill College Comparison Tool, but VA failed to engage in robust risk-based program reviews of the "bad actors," as the President called them, as required by the Executive Order.
"It is devastating to veterans," said Matthew Boulay, head of Veterans Student Loan Relief Fund. "If the VA has approved a degree program for GI Bill funds, veterans justifiably expect, as they should, that the program is worthy of their benefits, their service and sacrifice."
"The veterans we serve are understandably angry when they discover that the very consumer fraud they faced at a predatory school is one VA knew about and yet approved for GI Bill benefits," explained Carrie Wofford, President of Veterans Education Success.
Similar calls for better oversight of the GI Bill have come recently from VA's own advisory committee on education (Letter) and from a group of state Attorneys General (Letter) who sue for-profit colleges over consumer fraud.
Previous Congressional calls for VA to stop for-profit college abuses of veterans include a Letter last month from the Senate Government Affairs Oversight Committee's Ranking Democrat regarding VA's failure to halt GI Bill funds to the for-profit Corinthian College chain, even as it shuttered under federal regulatory scrutiny, including for misleading veterans by claiming the school was a Pentagon affiliate; a Letter last summer from 22 Members of Congress calling on VA to investigate the for-profit college chain ITT Technical Institute, in light of federal and state law enforcement actions, and to provide veterans warnings about schools under law enforcement cloud; a Letter last summer from Ranking Members of Senate & House Veterans Committees to VA to increase warnings to veterans about which for-profit colleges have engaged in predatory practices; a Letter last December calling on VA to alert veterans about schools subject to a major federal law enforcement settlement, and to improve oversight of the GI Bill; and press conferences following the release of the Yale Law School report (April news release and video).
In addition, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report last Fall finding VA had issued GI Bill overpayments for 1 out of 4 veterans, leaving the veterans on the hook to repay VA for the overpayments sent to schools.
The veterans' groups' letters to VA also called on VA to sign a data-sharing MOU with the US Education Department, which has been languishing since the 2012 Executive Order called on the two agencies to share data about student veterans' outcomes. Why does this matter? Because, currently, nobody in federal government knows the student veteran graduation rate or veteran student loan levels. The VA tracks veterans' use of GI Bill, but not the veterans' outcome measures or debt levels. Meanwhile, the Education Department tracks all students' outcomes and debt levels, but does not know which of the students in its database are veterans. Four years have passed since the President directed the two agencies to close this data gap.
