[Senate Hearing 112-143]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-143
PREVENTING ABUSE OF THE MILITARY'S TUITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
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HEARING
before the
FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
of the
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 2, 2011
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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66-674 PDF WASHINGTON : 2011
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JON TESTER, Montana ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MARK BEGICH, Alaska RAND PAUL, Kentucky
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Minority Staff Director
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Joyce Ward, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION,
FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK BEGICH, Alaska ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
John Kilvington, Staff Director
Bill Wright, Minority Staff Director
Deirdre G. Armstrong, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Carper............................................... 1
Senator Brown................................................ 6
Senator Coburn............................................... 7
Prepared statements:
Senator Carper............................................... 39
Senator Brown................................................ 57
WITNESSES
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011
Hon. Tom Harkin, a United States Senator from the State of Iowa.. 7
Robert Gordon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military
Community and Family Policy, U.S. Department of Defense........ 13
George Scott, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income
Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office......... 14
Kathy Snead, President, Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges...... 16
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Gordon, Robert:
Testimony.................................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 66
Harkin, Hon. Tom:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 60
Scott, George:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 74
Snead, Kathy:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 86
APPENDIX
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Gordon................................................... 101
Chart referenced by Senator Harkin............................... 118
Chart referenced by Senator Harkin............................... 119
Chart referenced by Senator Harkin............................... 120
Chart referenced by Senator Harkin............................... 121
Chart referenced by Senator Carper............................... 122
Chart referenced by Senator Carper............................... 123
Chart referenced by Senator Carper............................... 124
PREVENTING ABUSE OF THE MILITARY'S TUITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, Federal Services,
and International Security,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:38 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R.
Carper, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Brown, and Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is
great to be here with our Republican Senator for, I think it is
our first hearing together, Scott Brown, but to our colleague
from Iowa, thank you for not only for being here, but I
understand your schedule is such that you can stay for a few
minutes while we do our opening statements, but we are
delighted that you are here and thank you for your leadership
on this. We welcome our other guests, our other witnesses, and
we will be welcoming you up to this table in just a short
little while.
But the hearing will come to order. As we gather here for
this afternoon's hearing, our Nation's debt stands at $14
trillion, actually just over $14 trillion. Ten years ago on
this date, it stood at less than half that amount, a little
over $5.5 trillion. If we remain on the current course, it may
double again before this decade is over.
The debt of our Federal Government held by the public as a
percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has risen to almost
65 percent. That is up from about 33 percent a decade ago. The
last time it was this high was at the end of World War II. In
fact, the only time it has ever been as high, I believe, was at
the end of World War II. That level of debt was not sustainable
then and it is not sustainable today. We need only ask our
friends in Greece and Ireland about that.
The Deficit Commission led last year by Erskine Bowles and
former Senator Alan Simpson has provided us with a road map out
of this morass, reducing the cumulative deficits of our Federal
Government over the next decade by some $4 trillion and
skewering a number of our sacred cows, including some of my
sacred cows, along the way.
The purpose of this hearing, though, is not to debate the
merits of the Commission's work. The purpose of our hearing
today is to look at yet another area of government spending and
ask this question: Is it possible to achieve better results for
less money, and if not, is it possible to achieve better
results without spending a whole lot more money, or maybe even
spending the same amount of money that we are spending today?
A lot of Americans believe that a culture of spendthrift
prevails in Washington, D.C., and has for many years. They are
not entirely wrong. We need to establish a different kind of
culture. We need to establish a culture of thrift. We need to
look in every nook and cranny of Federal spending--domestic,
defense, entitlements, along with tax expenditures--and find
places where we can do more with less.
The Subcommittee has spent the last half-dozen years trying
to do just that. In those days, Senator Tom Coburn sat right
here where Senator Brown is sitting, or he sat here in this
seat. We took turns chairing this particular Subcommittee. But
we have worked over those years closely with the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB), with the Government Accountability
Office (GAO), with Inspectors General (IG), with nonprofits
like Citizens Against Government Waste and the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget, to reduce wasteful or inefficient
spending.
In doing so, we sought to reduce improper payments. We
sought to combat fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, to unload
surplus Federal properties, thousands of pieces of unused,
unneeded Federal property. We sought to decrease cost overruns
in major weapons systems procurement and in the procurement of
information technology (IT) systems by Federal agencies that
were over-budget and, frankly, were not able to do what they
were supposed to do in the first place. We sought to begin to
close a $300 billion tax gap. We sought to introduce
efficiencies in the way that the mail is delivered and the way
that the Census is taken. And we have sought, and I think may
prevail on this year, to provide the President with a
constitutionally sound statutory line item veto power. And the
list goes on. That gives you a flavor of the kinds of things we
have worked on. It is a good list.
Most of us in this room today, however, understand that we
cannot simply cut our way out of the debt. We cannot tax our
way out of the debt. And we cannot save our way out of all this
debt. We need to grow our way out of this debt, too. That means
we need to invest in ways that will grow our economy and make
our Nation more competitive with the rest of the world by
building a better educated, more productive workforce, by
reversing the deterioration of our Nation's infrastructure,
broadly defined, and by funding the kind of research and
development that will enable us to out-innovate the rest of the
world again.
If we are really serious about out-innovating the rest of
the world, we need to start by out-educating them, and frankly,
we have not done that for some time. This means a major focus
on early childhood education so that when kids walk into the
first grade at the age of six, they are ready to compete. They
are ready to be successful. I think I can get an ``amen'' from
Senator Harkin on that one.
It means that we must continue to transform our K to 12
public schools so that fewer students drop out and those who do
graduate are able to read, write, think, do math, use
technology, go on to become productive members of our society.
And it also means, for purposes of our hearing today, it means
ensuring that the post-secondary education that Americans
receive truly will make them more productive workers and more
productive citizens.
For years with our service academies, with programs like
the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and the G.I. Bill, we
sought to raise the skill levels of those who serve in our
armed forces as well as the skill levels of those who later
return to civilian life. Senator Harkin and I both served a
number of years ago in the Navy. Scott Brown still serves, I
believe, in the military in a role in Massachusetts National
Guard, a leadership role. So this is personal for us, given our
background. This is personal for us.
Traditional education programs like ROTC scholarships and
the G.I. Bill are still in place, and now the new G.I. Bill is
much improved from when we were there. However, we also offer
our active duty military personnel another lesser-known
education benefit. It is called the Tuition Assistance Program
(TA), and that is going to be the focus of our hearing today.
Under this program, American taxpayers will pay about $250
per credit hour toward the cost of a service member's tuition
for a maximum of about $4,500 per year. In fiscal year (FY)
2000, the Department of Defense (DOD) spent about $157 million
on tuition payments under this program. By 2009, that number
had risen to over $500 million, a three-fold increase in just 9
years.
This program does require service members to continue their
active duty service while they complete their courses. As you
might expect, this requirement somewhat limits the choices
available to active duty personnel, like the ones at Dover Air
Force Base, where you never know when you are going to head out
on a detachment or deployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, or some
other place around the world.
But active duty personnel members basically have three
options when it comes to post-secondary education. One of them
is that they can take courses on base with schools that have
permission to offer courses there. We have some of that at
Dover. You probably have that in your States, as well. Second,
they can attend courses at nearby college campuses. Some of our
folks at Dover Air Force Base do that as well. Last, our
military personnel can enroll in distance learning courses.
Each of these three options includes providers who do an
excellent job, of educating their students. Each of these three
options also include providers who, frankly, do not. These
three options include private and nonprofit schools, public
colleges and universities, and for-profit schools. In today's
hearing, we will focus primarily on the latter, and that does
not mean we are taking our eyes off of the former.
For-profit schools that operate almost entirely online have
become the frequent choice of many military personnel who have
opted for the distance learning option. At the Dover Air Force
Base in Delaware, the most popular school is a for-profit, and
this for-profit university has enrolled, I am told, twice as
many Dover airmen and women as the two local colleges that
offer courses on base. The fact probably should come as no
surprise, since the distance learning services are in high
demand. For-profits have sought to fill our military's needs
for post-secondary education, in part because of the
accessibility of their classes and the variety of courses that
are offered.
While some for-profit schools return real value for
taxpayers' money--we have heard and talked to a number of
them--serious questions have also arisen with respect to the
recruiting practice of some for-profits and to the quality of
the education that they provide.
Over the past year or two, Senator Harkin's Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) has sought to
put a spotlight on both of these areas. In cooperation with the
Government Accountability Office, the Committee uncovered
unethical recruitment practices by a number--not all, but by a
number of for-profits that they investigated. In addition, the
Committee found a disturbing trend. Many for-profit
institutions depend heavily on Federal student aid dollars, but
fail to consistently provide a quality education. I said many,
but by no means all. Some of them do an excellent job, and we
want to make that perfectly clear.
In a number of cases, 90 percent or more of these for-
profit schools' revenues come from taxpayer-funded student aid
programs, over 90 percent. This would not be objectionable if
the overwhelming majority of these schools were producing
students with strong skill sets that led to careers with
livable wages and good benefits. However, at too many of these
schools, that simply is not the case and far too many students
are provided with minimal instruction and support. They drop
out. Others may actually graduate, but they subsequently have
difficulty finding the kinds of jobs that would enable them to
pay off their sizeable student loans and to support their
families.
Recent data shows that some 25 percent of students at for-
profit colleges have defaulted on their loans within 3 years
while only about 10 percent of students at not-for-profit
institutions have defaulted.
The Department of Education (DOE) is addressing the issues
of default rates and accountability in for-profit industry
through regulation. Our post-secondary education system will be
better off, I believe, as a result of these efforts. While some
folks contend that these efforts by the Department would cut
off higher education access to many of our most vulnerable
citizens, I do not agree with that thinking. The Department of
Education's regulations would only cut off access to programs
at schools that are clearly not offering a good product, an
education that costs too much, offers little instruction and
training, and often saddles students with mountains of debt
that is difficult, if not impossible, for them to repay.
Currently--and as I have gone through the preparation for
this hearing, I have talked with a number of folks from schools
themselves and from the Department of Defense, from Education,
from the Committee, and it occurs to me that, currently, the
incentives at many for-profit colleges are misaligned, somehow,
the incentives that we are providing for them to perform and to
provide education, in this case, for our military personnel.
The institutions are rewarded for enrolling more students, but
they have little, if any, incentive to make sure that their
graduates are prepared for the workforce and are able to enter
careers that enable them to manageably repay their student loan
debt and begin to live the American dream.
Having said that, let me again say as clearly as I can,
this is not an issue solely for for-profit institutions. There
are many community colleges experiencing similar issues with
extremely low degree completion rate and very high default
rates. And to be fair, there are also a number of for-profit
institutions that offer a quality education and have a history
of success with placing students in well-paying jobs.
We have reached the time, though, when we need to be doing
all that we can to ensure that we get the best bang for our
bucks across all aspects of our Government. Student aid
spending needs to be at or near the top of our list, not just
because of the amount we spend on these programs--and it is a
lot--but also because the future and the dreams of our students
depend on spending that money wisely.
Nowhere is that need more evident than with our troops
participating in the Tuition Assistance Program. Over the past
year, several reports have described troubling stories of how
some schools come close to abusing our veterans and active duty
military personnel. The accounts of that abuse range from
deceptive recruitment practices by school recruiters to
schools' hollow promises about the transferability of credits
to students becoming saddled with unnecessary debt.
In one case, our staff uncovered a service member who used
his tuition assistance benefit to earn his Bachelor's degree
from a for-profit college that promises his credits would fully
transfer after graduation. However, when he went on to apply
for a Master's program at another school, he found that none of
his credits would be accepted there, rendering his Bachelor's
degree far less valuable than he thought it would be.
In another case, one soldier enrolled in a for-profit
institution based on the school's promise that they accepted
tuition assistance payments, but because the Department of
Defense only pays the benefit after successful completion of a
course, the soldier discovered that after taking a class that
the Army would not give payments to his school, instead
sticking him with the bill.
As some of you know, I have four core principles that I try
to incorporate into everything that I do and they are, number
one, treat other people the way I want to be treated; number
two, to try to do the right thing, not the easy thing, but try
to do the right thing, really to focus on excellence in
everything that we do, and to really never give up. If I think
I am right, know I am right, I just do not give up. I think a
lot of us are that way.
The idea that some schools take advantage of our service
members really offends each of those four core principles that
I claim as my own. We demand so much of our men and women in
uniform and of their families. We must also demand more of our
schools and get better results from our government.
We are here today because I think it is a moral imperative
to ensure that the Department of Defense is doing everything
that it can to prevent these kinds of abuses. We have asked the
Government Accountability Office to investigate and assess the
Department of Defense's ability to identify and stop these
abuses. GAO will share its findings with us today.
And finally, let me just say, we also have with us today
representatives from the Department of Defense and the
Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, a consortium of schools
empowered to police these schools that are serving our troops.
We welcome you. These witnesses will help us better understand
the current safeguards against abuse of the Tuition Assistance
Program, how well they work and how we can improve them.
In turning this over to Senator Brown, he has spent over 20
years in our armed forces. How many years is it, close to 30,
is it not?
Senator Brown. Thirty-one years.
Senator Carper. Yes, 31 years. I spent 4 years of
Midshipman, 5 years active duty during the Vietnam War, another
18 years as a Naval flight officer (NFO), ready reservist in
the military, retired as a Navy Captain, 8 years as the
Commander in Chief of the Delaware National Guard. This is
personal for him. This is personal for me and the men and women
with whom I served, sometimes in war, sometimes in peace. They
deserve the best that we can give them and I just want to make
sure that as we go through this, that we are giving them our
best effort and we are giving them every chance that they have
to be successful when they turn to getting the skills they need
to be employable and to go on with their lives. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWN
Senator Brown. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for that
presentation. First of all, I am honored to be on this
Subcommittee. I think the last time people saw us together, we
were sitting together at the State of the Union in the new
arrangement that we have, so that was enjoyable.
I am going to submit my comments for the record. You said a
lot of what I felt is important. The bottom line is, for
somebody who is still serving and has really participated with
the educational process in Massachusetts for Massachusetts
Guard and Reservists, I understand what the needs are and look
forward to working with you to get to the bottom of it, maybe
ways to improve and streamline and consolidate.
I know that Senator Harkin is on a tight schedule and I do
not want to take any time from anybody else, so I will submit
my comments for the record and just say I am looking forward to
working with you and honored to be on the Subcommittee. Thank
you.
Senator Carper. Thank you. We are delighted that you are
here. You fill some big shoes, this guy's shoes over here. It
is how I got a job sitting in this seat. I said this before you
arrived, Tom, but sitting here and sitting there, and we are
pleased to be able to work with you on so many issues,
including this one.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Thank you. I will just take a few short
minutes.
One is a letter I received yesterday on the, I will say it
more gently than what I think, some very significant and
inappropriate behavior at the Department of Education in
tipping hedge funds on short selling of private education
funds, which this Subcommittee definitely needs to take a look
at.
The second point I will make is the significant problems
with the Forensic Issue at GAO and the report they issued and
the modifications they have issued since. As we all know, they
are redoing their Forensic Unit because of the errors
associated with a report on for-profit colleges which was, to a
great extent, in many areas, highly inaccurate. It was almost
like we had something we wanted to show, so let us make the
figures put to that.
Nevertheless, there are real problems. I am not concerned
about the increase in the utilization, because with the new
G.I. Bill and the fact that the 90/10 rule does not apply for
for-profit colleges, you would expect them to go after many
more veterans because that is the way they can balance out
their numbers with the Department of Education.
I apologize I will not be able to stay for the entire
hearing. We have a judiciary hearing ongoing. But the issue in
terms of the lack of proper utilization of facts in the
Department of Education in advantaging investors in one segment
to make significant dollars over something the government is
thinking about doing is highly unethical, and if proven to be
the case, some people ought to be going to jail in the
Department of Education. This is not a light statement. I
recognize that. But it is a serious statement, and I promise
you, if we do not get on it in this Subcommittee, the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations will, in fact, do that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thanks. I guess, reiterating, the purpose
here is not to demonize for-profit colleges and universities.
The purpose is to try to make sure that the men and women that
are serving our country are getting the best deal that they
can, a fair deal, and that the taxpayers are getting a fair
deal, as well.
With that having been said, let me recognize Senator
Harkin. I have a long introduction, but I will not use that.
Let me just say, you and your staff have been terrific on these
issues and we applaud you for trying to do what you believe is
right, what I think is right, and you are recognized for as
long as you wish.
TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM HARKIN,\1\ A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF IOWA
Senator Harkin. I appreciate it very much. Thank you very
much, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on this and for having
this hearing, and Senator Brown, Senator Coburn. This is an
issue that all of us have to pay more attention to.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Harkin appears in the
appendix on page 60.
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I would just start off by saying that we have decided as a
country and as a Congress that it is important for the Federal
Government to be involved in higher education. We have been for
a long time--the G.I. Bill, Pell Grants, student loans. I think
it is equally important that we make sure the taxpayers get a
good value for their dollar, and I think it is equally
important that students get a good education and that they do
not take on more debt than they can pay back. That is just a
general overview.
Concerning the for-profit schools, what got us into this
about a year ago as I took over the Chairmanship of the
Committee were more and more reports were coming out about the
tremendous growth in this segment of education over the last
few years, 225 percent growth in just a few years, just a
burgeoning of this, and the more and more money that we saw
going from Pell Grants and others into the for-profits compared
to how many students were there. They were getting a
disproportionate share of the money.
For example, 10 percent of the higher education students
are in for-profit schools, but they are getting 23 percent of
the Pell money and 24 percent of student loans. So 24 percent
of the student loans, 23 percent of the Pell Grants, but they
only have 10 percent of the students.
So we saw this burgeoning, this growth, and so we began to
ask questions, and we began to ask questions about the students
and who were these students and how were they doing and what
was the graduation rate and we could find out nothing. There
were no answers out there. No one was keeping track of
anything. And so we started an investigation of this, of the
for-profits, trying to find out if we could get some answers
from this.
And so we started this investigation that has been going on
for about a year. We have asked for documentation from a number
of these schools. I think about 20 of these schools we have
looked at and asked for documentation. Some of it has been
forthcoming, and as we looked at it and delved into it, we got
a clearer picture of what was happening, at least in this
segment. We could not go into all of them, but we took 20
across the spectrum.
And thus far, the findings of our investigation are that,
number one, as a sector, for-profit higher education has
experienced disproportionate growth, more than doubling
enrollment over the last decade.
Two, that growth has been fueled by Federal subsidies. The
15 publicly-traded for-profit colleges receive almost 90
percent, and in some cases more than 90 percent, because as
Senator Coburn indicated, military money is not counted on the
90 percent side, it is counted on the other side. So sometimes
they can go over the statutory limit of 90 percent. So they are
getting about 90 percent, overall, of the revenue from taxpayer
dollars. I have often wondered, how can you be for profit when
you are getting 90 percent of your money from the taxpayers.
Three, as a result, many of these companies have been
extremely successful, sometimes with profits exceeding 30
percent per year--30 percent of gross revenue profits in these
schools.
Next, in what appears to be a systemic failure, however,
schools are extremely profitable even when the students are
failing. Nearly every for-profit student borrows a Federal loan
to attend college. Twenty-five percent are defaulting within 3
years of leaving the school, compared to 11 percent at public
institutions and 8 percent at nonprofit colleges.
Last, these default rates should not come as a surprise
when the data provided to the Committee shows that more than 54
percent of students enrolling in for-profit schools, the ones
that we looked at, dropped out within a year. Fifty-four
percent dropped out within 1 year, after having taken on a
substantial debt load. So they are getting huge debts, but they
have no diploma.
So the question, I think, before us is not whether for-
profit colleges should exist, but how to make sure they are
doing their utmost to serve students and to give taxpayers good
value for their dollar.
Now, for-profit colleges, as they exist, must spend a large
percent of their Federal dollars on aggressive marketing
campaigns and sales staff in order to grow, sometimes as much
as 60 percent. The GAO, which visited 15 campuses of 12
companies, found misleading, deceptive, overly aggressive, or
fraudulent practices at every one of those campuses.
Investigators posing as prospective students were lied to about
the costs of the program, about what they could expect to earn,
about how many students graduated, about whether the credits
would transfer, and about whether the program was accredited.
In addition, my Committee has reviewed recruiting and
training manuals from several different campuses and they all
have one thing in common. It is called manipulation. They
encourage their sales staff to identify the emotional
weaknesses of prospective students and to exploit what they
call the students', quote, ``pain'' in order to motivate them
to enroll. These high-pressure sales tactics are designed to
maximize enrollments and profits, not to ensure a good match
between a student's educational needs and the school. And in my
testimony, I have provided some of these documents to the
Committee.
Now, this brings us to the military. Unfortunately, our
military bases are by no means safe havens from these types of
aggressive and misleading recruitment practices. According to a
Bloomberg article on for-profit colleges and service members,
some of the schools are recruiting on base without permission,
circumventing the education coordinator on the base. Again,
this is happening in the military, and one of the reasons they
are going after the military is because they do not have to
count that on the 90 percent side.
Now again, despite the disturbing record of dropouts and
defaults, Congress has acted to increase educational benefits
available to active duty troops and families and to veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan, the Webb bill. In December, I released a
report examining these two programs and found that revenue from
DOD educational programs at 18 for-profit education companies
increased from $40 million in 2006 to $175 million by 2010, a
startling 337 percent increase.
I gave you some charts. I do not have them on a big board,
but if I could refer to Chart 1,\1\ the blue line and the red
line, the red line is the total company revenue and how much it
has gone up since 2006, and it has incrementally gone up. But
you see the huge increase in the amount of money coming from
the military. That is Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and
DOD revenues.
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\1\ The chart referenced by Senator Harkin appears in the appendix
on page 118.
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Chart 2 is a similar one.\2\ The green line shows the total
educational benefit programs, VA and DOD, going up. But what is
pulling the line up is the revenue that is coming into those
schools, that blue line is going up. So you can see that they
are aggressively going after the military.
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\2\ The chart referenced by Senator Harkin appears in the appendix
on page 119.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chart 3, I think, is also instructive.\3\ It is the
Department of Veterans Affairs educational benefits received by
18 for-profit schools. You can see in 2006, it was $26 million.
In 2010, it was $285 million, just in 4 years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ The chart referenced by Senator Harkin appears in the appendix
on page 120.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The last chart is the DOD educational benefits.\4\ The
previous chart was VA. This one is DOD at these 18 schools. As
you can see, it has gone from $40 million to $175 million just
last year. So this tremendous, tremendous increase in the
amount of money going from the military.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ The chart referenced by Senator Harkin appears in the appendix
on page 121.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So in sum, what I am saying is that what I have heard and
what I have learned from this investigation makes me deeply
concerned that there is inadequate oversight of our nearly $30
billion in Federal aid to for-profit schools. At the beginning
of this investigation, I found an alarming lack of information.
When we first went after the schools a year ago on
investigation, we had no information, so we had to do this
investigation. So I went to the military and I asked them for
information. Nothing. They do not track students. They have no
idea what is happening to this money. They have no idea what is
happening to graduation rates. The figures I have shown you
here, Mr. Chairman, are just for 18 schools that we
investigated. You cannot get it for the whole military. I
cannot get it from anyone in the military.
So I would just sum up by saying this. We have to
remember--you mentioned, Mr. Chairman--I am like you. I went
through ROTC, spent my time in the military, used the G.I. Bill
to further my education, and it is a great benefit. It is a
great benefit. But we have to remember one thing. These
benefits are one time, finite, one time. You get them one time,
and if they are wasted, if they are thrown away and you do not
get a good education, you do not ever get them again.
And again, when I asked questions about the military, I got
the same problem as I got a year ago when I asked just about
the general for-profit schools, no answers. No answers.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would just say that there is something
wrong when students are failing, they are dropping out in their
first year, they are taking on huge debts, and these schools
are making profits, big time profits, up to 30 percent per year
profits on them. And now, what has happened, as bad as it has
been in the past, it is now seeping into the military, and more
and more of our taxpayers' dollars going out through DOD and to
VA into the for-profit schools.
And the DOD is not tracking this, Mr. Chairman. They are
not doing anything that can tell you what is happening to these
students. I can tell you because we did an investigation of 18
schools. But I cannot tell you if this is representative. If
this is representative of the entire military, we have a real
problem out there, and I think it behooves us as, as you said,
taking care of the taxpayers' dollar, to find out where that
money is going, how it is being used, and also, I think, as
guardians of our troops, those who have risked their lives for
us and to defend our country, are they being aggressively
recruited? Are they being taken advantage of? Are they getting
the money to go to these schools, dropping out within a year,
and not getting a diploma or a good education of the kind that
we got when we used our G.I. Bill?
So, Mr. Chairman, this warrants looking into. I
congratulate you for your endeavors in this area and I look
forward to working with you to, again, get the answers we need.
Senator Carper. Thank you very, very much for that, not
only for the statement, but for the yeoman's labor that you and
your colleagues on the Committee and your staff have done.
I have a number of questions I could ask you, but I am not
going to do that. I will just ask a rhetorical question and we
will pursue this with our other witnesses and maybe you and I
can talk about this with Senator Coburn and with Senator Brown
later.
But when we focus on health care reform, we focus on one of
the issues that is one of the drivers for health care is the
cost of defensive medicine. We almost reward the doctors,
nurses, hospitals for quantity rather than for quality.
Sometimes, I think maybe, we have our incentives misaligned,
and rather than incentivizing not just churning more people
through the door, somehow, we have to figure out how to
incentivize making sure at the end of the day that the folks
who come through the door actually leave with a degree and with
an education, with completion of a program that will enable
them to move on to live more productive lives. Somehow, we have
to figure out how to change those incentives, and my hope is
that with your help, the help of your Committee and the folks
who are before us today, and people within the industry itself,
especially the for-profit community that are doing a great job,
we can learn from them.
Is there anything you want to add to this, Scott?
Senator Brown. No, thank you.
Senator Carper. All right, good. All right. Thank you so
much. Great to see you.
Senator Harkin. Thank you.
Senator Carper. If our second panel would come up and join
us, that would be great. [Pause.]
Let me just go ahead and briefly introduce our witnesses,
starting with Robert Gordon. Nice to see you again. You are
going to actually be our lead-off hitter, now that spring
training is underway. But Mr. Gordon is the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy.
In this position, Mr. Gordon is responsible for overseeing the
various aspects of support services for military members and
for their families. He is here today because one of these
services is the Volunteer Education Program for Military
Personnel, which includes the Tuition Assistance Program.
In addition to serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Mr. Gordon is also a retired Army Colonel, so good for
you. Thanks for your service. During his 26-year military
career, Mr. Gordon held numerous assignments, including being
selected to be aide de camp to then Brigadier General Colin
Powell, one of my heroes, from 1981 to 1982.
Colonel Gordon, we thank you for being here and, again, for
your service.
Next, the real George Scott, is here to speak with us
today. Mr. Scott is the Government Accountability Office's
Director for Education, Workforce, and Income Security. He is
responsible for leading the Government Accountability Office's
work that is related to higher education issues, including
oversight of the Department of Education's student financial
aid programs.
Last spring, my office asked the Government Accountability
Office to investigate the adequacy of the Department of
Defense's oversight of the Tuition Assistance Program. Mr.
Scott is here today to testify on the findings of this report
and the work that they have done.
Mr. Scott, we thank you for the strong work of the
Government Accountability Office and specifically for the work
of your team. I talked with Senator Brown recently and saw he
was joining this Subcommittee and I said we are just one little
Subcommittee, but in terms of what we can do by working with
OMB, GAO, and the Inspectors General and a number of nonprofits
that are really committed to spending money wisely, we are able
to get a whole lot done, but we really are grateful to the work
that GAO does----
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Senator Carper [continuing]. As our partner in this.
Last but not least, we have Dr. Kathy Snead. Dr. Snead is
the President of the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC),
as I am sure it will be referred to here today. The
Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges is a membership consortium
that contracts with the Department of Defense to serve as a
connection between our military personnel and the schools that
serve them. I was interested to learn this week from you and
our testimony and all that this consortium consists of almost
2,000 schools and was created to provide educational
opportunities to service members who, because they frequently
move, as Scott and I know, Tom Harkin knows, frequently move
from place to place, have trouble sometimes completing their
college degrees.
Prior to becoming President in 2004, Dr. Snead served in a
number of positions within the Servicemembers Opportunity
Colleges, beginning in 1995, and we thank you very much for
joining us today.
I am going to ask to have Mr. Gordon lead us off. Again,
your entire testimonies will be made part of the record and we
will invite you to summarize as you see fit. Thanks so much. We
have 5 minutes on the clock. If you run a little bit over that,
that is OK. If you run a lot over that, that is probably not
OK. We will rein you back in. Thanks very much.
Please proceed, Mr. Gordon.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT GORDON,\1\ DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR MILITARY COMMUNITY AND FAMILY POLICY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Gordon. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Senator Brown. The
Secretary of Defense and the men and women of the Armed Forces
as well as our families thank you for your support and also
thank you both for your service.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Gordon appears in the appendix on
page 66.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My role today is to focus on what the Defense Department is
doing to provide quality lifelong education and learning
opportunities through our off-duty voluntary education programs
and how we effectively manage those programs.
Each year, a third of our service members enroll in post-
secondary educational courses leading to Associates,
Bachelor's, and advanced degrees. This past year alone, there
were more than 857,000 course enrollments and 45,290 service
members earned degrees and certifications. In the spring of
2009 and 2010, we have held graduation ceremonies in Iraq and
Afghanistan for 432 service members.
Service members enrolled in voluntary education programs
are non-traditional students, as we know. They attend school
part-time during off duty, taking one or two classes a term.
When the military mission, deployments, transfers, and family
obligations impinge upon their ability to continue their
education, it can result in an interruption of studies and
breaks of months or even years between taking courses and
completing degrees.
The military is keeping pace with the civilian millennial
generation's expectations to access information through
technology. To facilitate education in today's high operations
tempo environment, colleges and universities deliver classroom
instruction via the Internet and on military installations
around the world. There are no geographical confines. Courses
are offered on board ships, submarines, and at deployed
locations.
To help us ensure our service members are receiving a
quality education, all for-profit, non-for-profit, and public
post-secondary institutions participating in Tuition Assistance
Programs must be accredited by an accredited body recognized by
the U.S. Department of Education. Also, colleges and
universities on our installations adhere to additional
criteria.
To support these efforts, the Defense Department previously
contracted with the American Council on Education (ACE) to
conduct the Military Installation Voluntary Education Review
(MIVER), which provided a third-party independent review of our
on-installation programs. Currently, we are pursuing another
contract, to be awarded by October 1 of this year, which will
have an enhanced quality criteria and include all modes of
delivery and all institutions, on and off military
installations, participating in the Tuition Assistance Program.
With the new review, we will track the third-party
recommendations and monitor all corrective actions to ensure
there is continuous quality improvement.
To ensure this occurs, we are implementing a new policy
requiring every institution participating in the Tuition
Assistance Program to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
with DOD which includes an agreement to participate in the new
review process. The policy is effective next year, January 1,
2012.
As you are aware, our Tuition Assistance Program recently
underwent a very detailed examination by the Government
Accountability Office. I am pleased to say that I believe their
report on our management of this large and complex program was
favorable. We will find out in a minute. The GAO made five
administrative recommendations. We concurred with all of them
and we are implementing them now.
To help us better leverage Department of Education's
knowledge and expertise in the future, we are developing a
partnership sharing agreement to receive reports from
accrediting agencies, school monitoring reviews, and
requirements for State authorizations of schools. We will apply
this information, where applicable, to the DOD Voluntary
Education Programs and use it prior to issuing tuition
assistance funds.
Also, the DOD is developing an automated tracking system to
document all concerns and complaints. The web-based system will
allow students, DOD personnel, and schools to submit comments.
The system will track all submissions and record resolutions.
Information gleaned from the system will be used to address
improper behavior or questionable marketing practices by an
institution participating in the Tuition Assistance Program.
One of the reasons recruits join the military is because of
educational opportunities, and many of them continue to
reenlist because of those opportunities. None of this could
have been possible without Congressional support and the
funding designated for our Volunteer Education Programs.
Thank you again for your strong support of our military
members and their families. I will be happy to respond to any
questions.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much for your testimony.
Mr. Scott, please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF GEORGE SCOTT,\1\ DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, WORKFORCE,
AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman and Senator Brown, I am pleased to
be here today to discuss the Department of Defense's oversight
of its Tuition Assistance Program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Scott appears in the appendix on
page 74.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fiscal year 2010, the program provided $531 million in
tuition assistance to over 300,000 service members pursuing
post-secondary education. The Department offers these benefits
to service members to help them fulfill their academic goals
and enhance their professional development. The Under Secretary
of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible for
oversight of the program. In addition, the military services
are responsible for operating the program and Education Centers
on military installations.
Today, I will discuss DOD's oversight of schools receiving
tuition assistance funds and the extent to which the Department
coordinates with accrediting agencies and the Department of
Education.
In summary, DOD is taking steps to enhance its oversight of
the Tuition Assistance Program, but areas for improvement
remain. Specifically, DOD could benefit from a risk-based
approach to overseeing schools, increased accountability in its
quality review process, and a centralized system to track
complaints. We also found that DOD's limited coordination with
accreditors and the Department of Education may hinder its
oversight.
First, we found that DOD does not systematically target its
oversight efforts. Instead, DOD's policies and procedures vary
by a school's level of involvement with the program. Further,
schools that operate on base are subject to the highest level
of review, even though over 70 percent of courses taken by
service members are through distance learning programs. DOD is
taking steps to create a more uniform set of policies.
Despite these changes, the Department's oversight
activities still lack a risk-based approach. For example, while
DOD monitors schools' enrollment patterns and addresses
complaints about schools on a case-by-case basis, its oversight
activities do not systematically consider such factors when
targeting schools for review. Additionally, the lack of
accountability for schools and installations to follow up on
findings and recommendations from educational quality reviews
may limit the effectiveness of this oversight tool.
Second, while DOD has several ways for service members to
report problems associated with their tuition assistance funds,
it lacks a centralized system to track complaints and how they
are resolved. According to DOD officials, the Department's
practice is to resolve complaints locally and to only elevate
issues that warrant greater attention to the military service
level. However, DOD and the military services do not have a
formal process or guidance in place to help staff determine
when they should elevate a complaint. Without formal policies
and a centralized system to track complaints and their
outcomes, DOD may not have adequate information to assess
trends or determine whether complaints have been adequately
addressed.
Finally, DOD's oversight process does not take into account
monitoring actions by accrediting agencies or the Department of
Education. For example, DOD could consider whether a school has
been sanctioned by an accreditor or is at risk of losing its
accreditation when considering which schools to review.
Likewise, the Department does not utilize information from
Education's reviews to inform its oversight of schools. The
results of Education's oversight efforts can provide important
insight on a school's financial stability and compliance with
regulations that protect students and Federal student aid
dollars. Further, DOD may also be able to leverage information
from Education's ongoing efforts to improve its oversight of
distance education.
In conclusion, the significant amount of tuition assistance
funds spent on distance learning programs creates new oversight
challenges for DOD. This is especially true given that the
Department has traditionally focused on schools offering
classes on military installations. Although DOD is taking steps
to improve its oversight, further actions are needed to address
the gaps we identified. Additionally, DOD could enhance its
efforts by leveraging information from accreditors and the
Department of Education.
I am encouraged that the Department has agreed with our
recommendations and is taking actions to address them. We will
continue to monitor the Department's progress in improving its
oversight of the Tuition Assistance Program.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks and I would be
happy to answer any questions you or Senator Brown have at this
time.
Senator Carper. Great. Thanks so much, Mr. Scott.
Dr. Snead, please proceed. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF KATHY SNEAD,\1\ PRESIDENT, SERVICEMEMBERS
OPPORTUNITY COLLEGES
Ms. Snead. Chairman Carper and Senator Brown, thank you
very much for the opportunity to talk about the Department of
Defense's Voluntary Education Program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Snead appears in the appendix on
page 86.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOC's primary role in the Voluntary Education Program, as
defined by our contractual relationship, is verifying that
institutions that provide undergraduate education on military
installations are appropriately accredited and that they adhere
to academic principles and criteria regarding the transfer of
credit from other colleges and universities and the evaluation
of military credit from training and experience that they have
had, and we look at those academic policies that facilitate
completion of the degree. That is the primary goal for that
educational program.
Beginning in 2005, the SOC principles and criteria have
been expanded with some operating guidelines for member
institutions that are related to college recruiting, the
marketing, and student services. The guidelines have really
evolved over the years into really standards of good practice,
and the member institutions adhere to those and they affirm
that every 2 years, letting us know that those principles are
in place at their institutions.
In those guidelines and standards of good practice, we talk
about outreach efforts and that those advertising and marketing
efforts need to really focus on the educational programs to
make sure that students are aware of the cost, also the
requisite skills that they need to have to be able to
successfully complete that program. In addition, those
principles and criteria really state that the high-pressure
promotional activities and enrollment incentives are
inappropriate practices for our member institutions.
With the increased funding levels in the recent years, both
with military tuition assistance and the G.I. Bill programs
that contribute toward the veteran and the service member's
education, I think some institutions have sought to limit their
capital risk by heavily recruiting students who are supported
by guaranteed Federal monies, whether it be the financial aid
program Title IV, military tuition assistance, VA educational
benefits, and this is done to really reduce the risk of
enrolling students who are solely relying on their out-of-
pocket funding sources, which fluctuate in the economic
downturns. To focus on recruiting students to start college
without regard to the student success metrics may be where some
of the potential abuse of the DOD Tuition Assistance Program
may lie.
Mr. Gordon referenced the Department of Defense instruction
that has been revised and has the Memorandum of Understanding.
In addition to the MIVER, all of the institutions who
participate in the Tuition Assistance Program will be required
to adhere to the SOC principles and criteria and to our
Military Student Bill of Rights, and we have included that as
an appendix with the written testimony. So these added
measures, I think, will help document, identify, and also track
adherence to standards of good practice and there will be
greater focus there on the compliance.
SOC's contract also identifies a second role that is
related to college and university compliance and standards of
good practice. We serve as an ombudsman for counseling and
troubleshooting, academic counseling and troubleshooting. In
this capacity, the staff serve as ombudsmen for individual
students who identify a grievance or a complaint or the
military services through the Education Services Office (ESO)
who have cited a complaint or a grievance against an
institution. To the best of our ability, we investigate, we
problem solve and try to negotiate or resolve those issues. If
we are unable to resolve that, then we do forward those
complaints and issues to the Inter-Service Working Group, the
Department of Education, and to accrediting agencies, as
appropriate.
With respect to improving the fraud prevention in the
Tuition Assistance program, my recommendation would be for more
frequent and systematic analysis of the student TA enrollment
data. The accountability measures that have been employed are
primarily focused on program accountability. Is the student who
is being funded with tuition assistance being paid? Are those
colleges being paid? And if the student does not successfully
complete his or her course, is that being repaid to the
government? So they have been following government procedures
there.
And I think we could extend that same analysis at the
individual level to the institutional level, to look at the
tuition assistance data for the institutions, look at course
completion, course withdrawals to be able to get a better
handle on some of the concerns there. Systematically reviewing
those course completions, I think, would prove insightful, and
as well, collecting and aggregating such data across the Armed
Services would be instructive.
Finally, I would suggest that you replicate similar data
analysis with the VA educational benefits. That would also go
across tuition assistance. Since some service members top up
their tuition assistance funding with VA educational benefits,
some of the same advertising, marketing strategies may be
employed by institutions that are working both with veterans
and our service members. Thank you.
Senator Carper. And thank you very, very much.
I have asked Senator Brown if he would like to lead off. I
think we are going to maybe have a vote or two sometime after
3:30, and he has got to be on the road at 4:00, so I am going
to go first with him. Thank you.
Senator Brown. That is very thoughtful, Mr. Chairman. That
is why everyone loves you.
So my concerns are that you have somebody who is back from
military service. They take advantage of the wonderful programs
that we offer. They go and they take part in one of the long-
distance learning programs. They complete the course. And then
maybe they want to go and get a Master's and then those credits
are not counted and/or they do not finish, and what is the cost
to the government by--well, I want to know why they did not
finish. Was there a breakdown? Did they realize that their
diploma maybe is not as good as it should be? And then what
happens to the funds to the institutions? Do we get some type
of reimbursement to the government? So a lot of it with me is
about the accountability part and to make sure that we are
getting the best value for our dollars.
And with that being said, Mr. Gordon, when will the new
contract for the MIVER be awarded?
Mr. Gordon. Senator, it will be October, basically, of this
year. So we had our old contract with ACE that ended in October
of this last year. We are in the process of putting that new
contract together and we will compete that contract in the next
couple of months.
One of the questions has been, well, why the gap, for
example, between last year and this year.
Senator Brown. That was my question.
Mr. Gordon. Right. [Laughter.]
Well, and one of the answers to that is the old contract
did not cover online institutions. So with this rapid growth in
online institutions and then the consumption of such on the
part of our service members, we felt that we can take this time
to ensure that we are doing it right, building the clock right
in terms of this new contract to incorporate online
institutions, all institutions, take some time to learn about
how to do that, to partner with the Department of Education and
others to figure out what that contract should look like, what
the protocols and regulations should be. So usually, any given
year, the old MIVER covered roughly about five installations,
roughly about 20 to 25 schools. But again, they were brick-and-
mortar schools on post or on base. So we think we can take this
time to do it right and get a good contract there to cover all
institutions.
Senator Brown. So, as you know, distance learning is
nothing new and we know there has been a significant enrollment
by our service members. It has been happening for 3 or 4 years.
Do you hear anyone saying, or do you feel that the DOD has been
a little bit behind the curve on this issue?
Mr. Gordon. Actually, I think we have been ahead of the
curve, because DOD has been doing distance learning for years
and years and years. What is new is the online aspects of
distance learning. We have had, as we all know, sailors on
ships for a long time and----
Senator Brown. Yes, I have taken them----
Mr. Gordon. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Brown. Still do.
Mr. Gordon. Right, and so distance learning is not new to
the military. What is new is the online aspect of it. So I
think we are learning with everyone else. We are seeing this
evolution across the country of online education, of blended
learning.
I just had a group into my office, I think it was yesterday
or the day before, that had a virtual blended education,
basically, for social workers. Some of that blended education
focused on our military community.
So things are changing, I think, in terms of education
across the country. We are all learning about that sort of
evolution. I think what is important is to give our service
members opportunities to take and consume education from great
colleges and universities across the country, and at the same
time ensure we do have the safeguards in place for those who do
not provide it to steer our service members away from it.
Senator Brown. Thank you.
Mr. Scott, do you have any concerns at your organization,
there is a gap at all?
Mr. Scott. Senator Brown, of course, being from the GAO,
any gap in coverage, per se, would at least from our
perspective be somewhat troubling because we do want to make
sure that during this period of transition and change, that
there continues to be sufficient oversight of the schools.
As I mentioned in my oral statement, we are encouraged by
the number of actions DOD has committed to take in response to
our recommendations. We feel that our report and our
recommendations provide a good road map for the Department in
terms of enhancing its oversight of all schools participating
in the program. That said, though, I would hope there would be
some plan in place to provide some interim coverage during this
year, during this period of transition.
Senator Brown. Thank you.
And Mr. Gordon, I know that about $3.7 million is what the
duration of the previous MIVER contract with the ACE was. So
after that amount of money and about 4 years of work, what kind
of insight do you have as to whether the ACE's recommendations
were fully implemented at the 60 or so installations that were
actually reviewed?
Mr. Gordon. Well, I think the good news story there is that
we worked with those installations once the ACE has findings in
terms of some improvements. We work with those installations to
ensure that those improvements take place so that our service
members are provided a better education.
So I think the advantage of our system in the past has been
that, clearly, areas have been uncovered that should be
improved. It has been very collegial in terms of working with
those institutions. But again, the shortfall is that we did not
cover online institutions with that old contract. We will be
able to do so.
Senator Brown. And Dr. Snead, I do not want to let you look
lonely over there.
Ms. Snead. I am fine, really. [Laughter.]
Senator Brown. So I was wondering if the SOC has any
involvement in keeping service members better informed about
their benefit qualifications and educational opportunities. Is
there anything you need to let us know on that front?
Ms. Snead. Certainly, one of the things that we do is to
provide information to all of the military installations
through the Education Offices. So the publications we provide
on identifying the right fit in terms of an institution, the
right type of degree program, we make that available through
the Education Centers. Our troubleshooting and counseling,
function, as I mentioned also, we have both a Web site and
phone service. It is not 24/7, but we are able to respond
within 24 hours to a lot of the both service members' and their
spouses' questions about education, about the financial
assistance, and directing a program, finding one.
Senator Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will wait until
the next round.
Senator Carper. I want to follow up, if I can, on one of
the questions that Senator Brown was asking. I have a couple of
charts up here. I do not know if we can put them up, if we
could.
But, Mr. Scott, in your testimony, I think, you raised a
number of important points, but I want to try to illustrate one
or two of them with some charts. And the first chart here on
the left, the one that reads ``DOD Tuition Assistance,'' \1\ it
looks like we spent--we, the taxpayers--spent about $517
million in fiscal year 2009 on tuition assistance benefits. Is
that a correct number?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The chart referenced by Senator Carper appears in the appendix
on page 122.
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Mr. Scott. I believe that is correct.
Senator Carper. OK.
Mr. Gordon. That is correct.
Senator Carper. The next chart that we have here, one that
labeled ``Lack of DOD Oversight,'' \2\ you see that about $360
million of this number was not subject to DOD's quality review.
In fact, only about $157 million was subject to this review. Is
that correct?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The chart referenced by Senator Carper appears in the appendix
on page 123.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Gordon. I have not seen that before----
Senator Carper. Mr. Scott, is that----
Mr. Scott. Well, I think the one thing we will want to note
about the lack of DOD oversight, the $360 million, I believe,
relates to the distance education portion, while the $157
million would relate to funds spent for in-classroom
instruction on military installations. The one thing I would
clarify with that, though, is that simply because it involves
in-classroom instruction on military installations does not
necessarily mean it was actually reviewed as part of the
process, because as we know, there is only a limited number of
reviews that are conducted each year.
Senator Carper. It strikes me as strange, if that is the
way it breaks out, $360 million on tuition assistance payments
for distance learning courses, and the--so that is the bulk of
this $517 million. But we actually did the quality review when
the course was actually provided on base in person. It just
seems like--it seems strange.
Mr. Scott. I think, as Mr. Gordon has pointed out, though,
they are taking steps to address that gap through the new
process they are developing.
Senator Carper. Yes. And I think we have a third chart
here. It says, ``No DOD Oversight Until October 2011.'' \3\ The
contract lapsed December 31, 2010. I think October--it is not
entirely clear to me what happens on October 1, 2011. Do we
have a quality review in place for all these many courses that
are being offered through distance learning? Is that when a
contract is awarded? Is it possible that there will be a
contract awarded and then litigation maybe that grows out of
the awarding of the contract? We see that all the time. We
finally just awarded a contract to Boeing for tankers and it
has been years in the making. So what are we looking at here in
terms of--I want to actually have the quality review in place
and somebody doing the job and doing it well.
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\3\ The chart referenced by Senator Carper appears in the appendix
on page 124.
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Mr. Gordon. Right, Senator. We plan to start that quality
review in October. We will award that contract before then.
Just some thoughts, I think, on the numbers. Of course,
that is a snapshot, when you see the $360 million in fiscal
year 2010. Over time, of course, we have had this growth of
online institutions and we had a review process in place that
was focused on installations. So over time, of course, the
number of our service members who were migrating over to online
institutions grew, and, of course, our MIVER did not cover
that. So we plan to cover that now. So I think the good news
story is we are going to cover now, with our new MIVER, that
$360 million that you see up there.
My response in terms of this gap, tough business, I think,
in terms of really understanding what it is that we really need
to look at for online institutions. We have to have time to get
this right. And we are working, I think, with the right groups
to do that. We are thinking comprehensively and judiciously
about it. But I would just submit to you, because we have to
get that 360 covered, we do need some time to ensure that we
have a clock that is built to cover it adequately.
And the whole idea is, no, let us not award the contract in
October. Let us begin in October. So we plan to award that
contract before then.
Senator Carper. All right. A question--in a minute I want
to ask you about incentives, the way you have aligned
incentives here to get better performance out of the schools,
better product for the military personnel. But let me just take
another minute and ask on my first question, why did we not
just keep the current contract going?
Mr. Gordon. Well, the contract----
Senator Carper. It ended at the end of last December,
right?
Mr. Gordon. Right, and the--well, October, the contract did
expire.
Senator Carper. So, basically, we are running without
pretty much anything, as I understand it, for about a year.
Mr. Gordon. For a year.
Senator Carper. That seems strange----
Mr. Gordon. Well, one thing----
Senator Carper [continuing]. Especially in a climate where
we know that the product that is being delivered, the education
that is being delivered to a lot of our students, frankly, is
disappointing, even disturbing.
Mr. Gordon. Yes, Senator, but I would submit that contract
would not have covered the $360 million. Now, it would have
covered those brick-and-mortar schools, basically, that we
currently have on our installations, but it would not have
helped us one bit to get to that $360 million in those online
institutions. So what we decided to do was focus this year on
developing that new contract that would do it.
Senator Carper. All right. I want to go back, and maybe,
Dr. Snead, we can lead off with you on this. We talked a little
bit about this when you were kind enough to meet with my staff
and me, the issue of aligning incentives in a way to drive good
public policy behaviors. It is something that intrigues me. I
studied a little bit of economics at Ohio State. My professors
would say, not enough. I studied a little bit more when I got
my MBA at Delaware. My professors would say, probably not
enough.
But I have always been fascinated with how do we harness
market forces to drive good public policy behavior, and I just
want to make sure that we do not continue to have our
incentives maybe misaligned, that we actually do a better job
of saying we are going to compensate schools, not just for the
number of people that they put through the program, or actually
bring into the program, but the number that they actually say
at the end of the day, well done. You have completed these
requirements. Here is your diploma. Here is your certificate of
completion. And that it actually means something. It actually
means that they have the ability to go out and get a job and to
be able to make money to repay not just their loan, but to go
out and support their families and live a decent life.
Talk to us a little bit about how we might change the way
we align the incentives to get the product that we all want,
and, frankly, to reduce the need for regulation.
Ms. Snead. Well, I am with you in terms of economics. I did
not have an economic course in any of my three degrees, so you
are ahead of me there.
And I would see it more perhaps turning it the other way.
My expectation is that colleges and universities that
participate in the Tuition Assistance Program meet certain
guidelines for success. They have success metrics in place and
they can demonstrate to us that they are doing a good job. If
they cannot do a good job, if they are not providing the
education that we want, we do not then fund them. So in a way,
it is a disincentive, that if they are not providing the
services and we cannot look at measures of success, then they
should not be in the tuition assistance or education benefits
for the Veterans Affairs program.
Senator Carper. If we want to reward success, how should we
be measuring success and this Tuition Assistance Program? That
is a question for you, Dr. Snead, and Mr. Scott, as well. But
how should we be measuring success?
Ms. Snead. And that is----
Senator Carper. Sometimes, we like--and we had an event
this morning, Senator Brown, where some of us were over at a
school here in Washington and we were talking about how do we
measure success in schools. And sometimes in education--in a
lot of programs--we try to say that we measure process. We do
not measure product, we measure process, and we reward process.
That does not work anymore. I mean, we have to figure out how
to measure success and reward product, not process, but go
ahead. How do we measure success in this?
Ms. Snead. Well, and that is difficult. Our organization
actually----
Senator Carper. That is why we ask you. [Laughter.]
Ms. Snead. I know. Well, we hosted a burning issue summit
on that very thing in February, and----
Senator Carper. This last month?
Ms. Snead. Just this past month, and had probably 200
educators in the room discussing the issue. Part of it has to
be quantitative, to be able to look at course completion. How/
where does the student start? Are they successful? And part of
that also is looking at the qualitative measures of what tools
or what sort of support is the student getting, whether that is
tutorial assistance, whether it is some guidance before they
start, are you ready for an online or a distance learning
program.
The Army, probably 4 or 5 years ago, had a program called
PREP, and I do not even remember what the acronym stands for,
but I can get that for you. Before soldiers entered in eArmyU,
which was an online, 100 percent distance learning program,
soldiers had to go through PREP training, to see whether they
have the online computer skills, whether they have the reading
skills to be able to do independent work, and also writing
skills. And this inventory did not deny participation, but it
was one of those mechanisms that said to a student, you may
have difficulty in this online program because your reading
level is not what might be at a college level. And so then it
was a discussion point with the Education Services Office or
the base commander to say for you to succeed, you need to make
sure you have everything in place and you are willing to study.
So it is a process and I think the piece I would say, and I
will defer to others, is to look at the quantitative as well as
the qualitative measures and what do colleges and universities
have in place to help students be successful.
Senator Carper. I am over my time, but Senator Brown, just
bear with me here just for a minute.
Senator Brown. All right.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Colonel. [Laughter.]
This school that we visited today, one of the things that
those students have to do, they have to--they take a test that
measures their progress toward the academic standards that are
in place for math and English and science and social studies,
and they take--it used to be they would take, like, an annual
photograph to see, like, where they were in the spring. But now
we take tests throughout the year. Students take tests
throughout the year that measure student progress. A lot of it,
they do it on computers, so it is a computer-assisted thing.
And we actually use the data that we get from those testing to
mine the data and we use it for individual instruction for the
students. But we actually are measuring success throughout the
school year.
And for, I think there is a raging battle, or a raging
debate going on in this country right now about how do we--
about teacher tenure in our public schools and whether or not
if school students are not making progress, should they
continue to be discontinued or eliminated. It is an important
battle, or issue, and it is one that is actually relevant here.
How do we measure success, Mr. Scott, and then I will yield
to Senator Brown.
Mr. Scott. As Dr. Snead mentioned, this issue of outcomes
and accountability is a key challenge, not only for the Tuition
Assistance Program, but for higher education overall.
One of the key things that folks are having trouble
figuring out is what does success look like in terms of post-
secondary education? What exactly does that mean? I would
respectfully suggest that what we might want to also think
about is what should those metrics look like. They need to be
meaningful, they need to measure what we want them to measure.
They actually have to be measurable. There has to be some
quantitative aspect to this. And they should also be
transparent so that everyone understands what the ground rules
are, that we have buy-in from key stakeholders. And once we
have those ground rules, then I think it is fair to apply those
metrics across all sectors of higher education, not just for-
profits, but the not-for-profits and the public, as well.
It is a process. I think this is a key challenge facing
higher education as we speak. There are lots of dollars going
into the system and there are lots of questions about the
benefit we are deriving from those investments.
Senator Carper. Thanks, and I thank you very much, Scott,
for your patience. You are recognized for as long as you wish.
Senator Brown. All righty. Well, let me just walk through,
for people who may be listening or observing. So somebody
serves. They become eligible for the benefits, and that is
accurate, correct? And then they go and they say what? I really
want to further myself. I want to be a better educated soldier
or person. And then they would go, let us say if they were
still serving, they would go to the base commander, or the
Learning Center on the base to get that guidance.
How is it determined what type of guidance they actually
get? Let us say someone is working on the motor pool or someone
is a hard-charging 11-Bravo infantry soldier. I mean, is there
a test that they take to determine where they are best
qualified to kind of focus their skills on, or what?
Mr. Gordon. The services do it a little bit differently.
The Air Force, for example, has the Community College of the
Air Force, so they have a number of strategic planks that are
associated, basically, with tuition assistance. So each service
does it a little bit differently. What is baseline, though, is
having access to counseling on the part of service members
through our education programs, and then access to education
about the kinds of opportunities that are available.
Then I think what is important to underscore when we talk
about quality and we talk about schools, that only those
schools, those colleges and universities that are accredited by
the Department of Education are available for tuition
assistance, and that is absolutely key in the process.
Senator Brown. Right. Let us take it a step further. And I
understand that, but one of the things that we are kind of
wrestling with is we are spending all this money and we are
finding out that some of these folks really are not getting a
good job based upon their training or their schooling after
they decide to take that step. I mean, I would suggest that
measuring progress is curriculum development, building a course
load towards a degree, and then ultimately graduation to a
junior or a four-year college. I mean, is that--when you are
saying, how do you measure it, is that not--am I missing
something?
Mr. Gordon. I think coaching--well, coaching is available
and tuition support and assistance. I do want to get back to
this measurement piece, because when we see the $517 million--
--
Senator Brown. Well, what is the goal? I guess, so I am
asking myself, I am listening, I have been reading, I mean,
what is the goal? Is the goal to take a course and feel good
about it, or is the goal to get somebody graduated with a
degree in something meaningful and then get them employed? So
what is the goal?
Mr. Gordon. I think a number of things. Lifelong education.
Lifelong education is a good thing, and what we have as a
vision is lifelong learning for DOD adult members.
Senator Brown. What does that mean, lifelong education? Do
you mean you just want to learn about how to play the violin? I
am never going to be a violinist. What does that mean, just
enhancing my cerebral cortex, or what does that mean exactly?
Mr. Gordon. Well, I think some of the evidence does suggest
that, especially with today's new technologies, we have
available to us the ability to continue to be educated and to
grow.
Senator Brown. Well, it is always good to grow and be
educated, but the bottom line is we are spending taxpayer
dollars to basically provide the tools and resources for our
soldiers to go out and get jobs and be employable. As you know,
Guard and Reservists, it is over 20 percent unemployment and we
are dealing with that in the veterans' community. That is one
of the reasons I filed the Hire a Hero Act, to try to get those
people employed. But if we are not giving them the guidance at
the basic, initial entry level as to what, Scott? You are never
going to be a concert violinist, but you could be a good fill-
in-the-blank. I mean, are they getting that guidance? When I
measure success, it is course completion towards a degree to
get a degree so I can go get a job.
Mr. Gordon. And our service members are getting their
degrees. I just want to say that with that $517 million, we
have over 500,000 service members who are going through our
educational system, 500,000. So when we take a look at success
in terms of education, 45,000 degrees that were conferred, I
mean, those are large numbers----
Senator Brown. How many degrees have there been?
Mr. Gordon. Over 45,000.
Senator Brown. OK. Out of how many?
Mr. Gordon. Well, we have 500,000 going through the system.
Senator Brown. OK.
Mr. Gordon. And what is important, I think what is
important here is multiple deployments where our soldiers and
our service members in general need time, basically, to finish
their education. And we are deployed. We are a deployed force
overseas. Our service members need time, basically, to complete
those courses. And so I still think it is a good news story
that we have an increase in the consumption of education.
And yes, there are taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers have spent
money on me to be educated as an Army officer, both my
undergraduate and graduate degrees. Hopefully, I am providing
something back to the country for that, and I think that is the
great benefit of this program.
Senator Brown. All right.
Ms. Snead. And I would, if I could add on to that--it is
the educator in me, I am sorry--but part of the process is when
someone goes to the Education Center, it is identifying what
the service member's educational goal is. This is a voluntary--
an off-duty, voluntary education program. So whether it is a
certificate, an Associate degree, a Bachelor's degree, they
have identified the goal, and then it is the counselor's role
to figure out how to get there.
As a counselor, some of the times it is the service member
says, what is the fastest way to a degree? I just need a degree
in order to gain employment----
Senator Brown. Regardless of just get it, just to check the
box.
Ms. Snead. Exactly.
Senator Brown. Right. OK.
Ms. Snead. For others, it is, I want a degree so that I can
then aspire in X, Y, and Z----
Senator Brown. Computer science, so I can go out and work
in computers or whatever. OK.
Ms. Snead. So those are the conversations, and again, it is
the individual educational goal. Sometimes, we do not have a
college graduation, or degree completion as being the ultimate
goal. The measure is whether people achieve the goal that they
had in mind, whether it is gaining employment after five or six
courses, whether it is getting an associates degree in
management so they can own their own motorcycle shop or other
kind of business. They have acquired the skills, so then they
are satisfied and they are more productive in that way, so----
Senator Brown. Well, I think one of the reasons I am going
down this line is that I do not think we are talking about
those people that want to be a manager of motorcycles. I think
we are trying to zero in on some of the, maybe the high-
pressure tactics that some of the Marine Corps and other IG
offices investigated. I wonder, did some of those institutions
get kicked off or barred from the installations, number one,
and if so, how many instances are you aware of and how were
they handled? Did they go up and down the chain of command? So
that would be kind of my first thing.
And, listen, I know there is a lot of good. That is great.
Amen. But we are not here to talk about the good. I do not
think we are having a hearing to talk about the good stuff. I
think we are having a hearing because we are worried and
concerned about the oversight and we are also concerned about
are we getting the best value for our dollar, and if not, then
how can we do it better? And if we need to provide you some
tools and resources to do things better, what is it? So that is
kind of where my head is at, Mr. Chairman, and so if maybe you
could just----
Mr. Gordon. Yes, Senator, and we are really happy to do
that and to be working basically as a government to ensure that
we are providing that correct oversight. And you are correct,
there are some institutions that are very aggressive in
marketing. I think what we can do and will do better is help to
educate our commanders, actually, in addition to the Education
Officers. It is really about the education, I think, of our
post and our base commanders about some of these practices and
some of the protocols that they can use and procedures they can
use to both monitor when these actions take place and then take
action. So there is some additional work to be done, quite
frankly, and we are going to do it.
Senator Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Brown.
I think you just made a good point there, Mr. Gordon. One
of the values of what we are doing here, this Subcommittee
asked GAO to do this study. We have asked them to put this
program really under a microscope and find out what we are
doing well and what we are not and to try to figure out what we
could do better. They have spent the time, I think a fair
amount of time, a lot of human resource hours, to drill down
and to look at the good, the bad, the ugly, and to come back
with a set of recommendations.
We are now holding this hearing to illuminate what they
have found and for you to have the opportunity on the part of
DOD to say, this is what was found. We, frankly, agree with all
the recommendations, the major recommendations that were made,
and we are beginning to follow up and act on those
recommendations.
If that is all that happens out of the work that has gone
into this last year, that is all that happens, that is a good
thing. If base commanders, the base commanders and folks that
are, whether it is Dover Air Force Base or a base in Oklahoma
or Massachusetts or any other place, if they get wind of what
is going on and they have a better sense that some of these--it
is not just the brick-and-mortar schools that are offering
courses on their bases that is important to monitor and to be
concerned about the welfare of their men and women, they need
to be concerned about the quality education that their folks
are getting on these online schools and distance learning
schools, that is really important here, as well. So that is
part of the value of this hearing.
Another comment I would make, I think, in response to
Senator Brown's question about measuring success, and I think,
Mr. Gordon, you mentioned one of our goals is lifelong
learning, and I strongly agree with that. One of the reasons
why we have hearings in the Senate is to help us, as Senators,
to actually get a little smarter and hopefully a lot smarter on
the broad range of issues that are before us.
I like to say--I said it already once today, I will say it
again--I know everything I do, I can do better. And one of the
ways that I hopefully can get better is get smarter, and one of
the ways I get smarter is to prepare for these hearings and to
actually sit through them and participate in them.
But if you have a student, maybe a student who had not done
all that well in public school, K to 12, and they are in the
military, they sign up, for classes maybe for reasons that are
not all that good or maybe they are well intentioned but maybe
they are under some pressure, but they are signed up to
participate in a course, a portion of which the cost is borne
by the Tuition Assistance Program, and they have a bad
experience, or maybe a couple of bad experiences in terms of
not getting the kind of support they need, maybe being in over
their head right from the start.
We see every semester at Delaware Technical and Community
College, a very good community school, where students graduate
with a high school degree, start at Del Tech. They cannot do
Del Tech math. They cannot do Del Tech English. They need
remedial training. They need preparation before they are going
to even have a chance of being successful. So if we want to
encourage people to really buy into lifelong learning for
themselves, part of it is to make sure that they have some
success right from the get go.
I have another question, if I could, for Mr. Scott. I just
want to revisit this a little bit before I turn to the next
line of questioning. But Mr. Gordon characterizes the audit
that GAO has done as, I think the word that was used was
``favorable.'' I am not sure that is quite what I came away
with. In fact, I think your audit says that DOD has taken, I
think the word was ``steps,'' but you believe that areas of
improvement remain.
Could you just take a moment and elaborate again on what
are some of those areas of improvement that remain and talk to
us about how you, GAO, how we, the Legislative Branch in our
oversight role, how we can make sure that those areas of
improvement do not remain all that long, that they are actually
addressed. Please.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Senator. As I said in my statement,
we believe that the Department of Defense is taking some steps,
but we also want to make sure that we continue to monitor their
progress in the areas we identified. That includes working with
the Department of Education and leveraging information that is
available there, taking steps to hold installations and schools
accountable for the MIVER process. I think some of the things
they have laid out in the MOU and the new process will help
address those concerns.
So the five recommendations I believe that we laid out in
the report, we see as key steps in helping to improve
oversight. And as I mentioned earlier and Mr. Gordon mentioned,
the Department is committed to following through on those
recommendations. So from our perspective, that is encouraging,
but as I also said, we will continue to monitor them to ensure
that they do, in fact, follow through.
Senator Carper. All right. Dr. Snead, Mr. Gordon, any
comments on what Mr. Scott has just said?
Mr. Gordon. We plan to follow through, and we do concur
with those five recommendations.
Senator Carper. Dr. Snead.
Ms. Snead. No.
Senator Carper. No? OK. If I can, a question for Mr.
Gordon, please. GAO, I think, indicated that they feel that DOD
lacks a centralized tracking system to catalog and monitor
complaints. You have indicated that in response, the DOD has
established a new centralized complaint tracking system that
satisfies this criticism. What does your new complaint tracking
system look like? Does it require every base's Education
Service Officer or whoever fills that kind of role, does it
require every base's Education Service Officer to register and
catalog complaints, every significant complaint, at least, that
is received from military students, or is it just really a
hotline or maybe a web form?
Mr. Gordon. Well, we have instituted a web-enabled system
because we feel that can be very effective. Our base,
basically, of service members who are engaged in online
education, or tuition assistance, should I say, do know of
these Web sites that are available that they go to to learn
more about the program and then use that information to sign up
for tuition assistance. So these are not unknown Web sites.
They can go to them. They can log a complaint or a concern. We
already have put that system into place. A number of things can
happen as a result of that. We can either ping one of the
services to have them follow up or follow up also at our level,
as well. So we have put a system in place. We will continue to
refine it. But it is a web-enabled system and we feel that it
will be very effective.
Senator Carper. Could you all comment on that, Mr. Scott
and Dr. Snead, please?
Ms. Snead. I have only seen the paper diagram that walks
you through that process. I have not participated in the
resolution experience yet.
Senator Carper. Should we be encouraged by what Mr. Gordon
has explained? Let us say I am the Education Service Officer at
Dover and we have some folks that are taking--it sounds like
for every one student there who is taking a brick-and-mortar
on-base course, or maybe two, they are using distance
learning--not a bad thing, necessarily. It could be a very good
thing. But let us say if there are complaints, whether it is
for on-base or the remote stuff, under the system that you have
envisioned or are instituting, I get the complaint. Do I have
any obligation as the Education Service Officer at our base
to--what am I obligated to do with it?
Mr. Gordon. Well, I just want to be clear that there are
some complaint systems already in place. The Army has a great
system and we are learning from that system, as well.
Senator Carper. Could you just briefly talk about that and
say how we are learning from it?
Mr. Gordon. Well, a number of things. We are designing our
system by collaborating also with the Army. They have not only
got a system of complaints, but they have a follow-up system in
terms of a survey to see what customer support was like, as
well. So they do have a good system in place and I think the
advantage of that is we can build upon it and institute more of
a global system at our level to ensure that we are being able
to log those complaints and then take some sort of action.
Now, some of those actions will be the same as before in
terms of the services looking into those and solving those
complaints. But now that we have this in place, there is much
more visibility and resolution on the part of OSD.
Senator Carper. OK. Not long ago, my family, my wife and
our two sons and I, were trying to figure out where to go for a
vacation over the Christmas holidays and we were looking at
some different hotels to go to in a place where the weather was
warmer than Delaware. In looking into the different hotels that
we looked at, we noted that there were a number of comments,
people who stayed there and liked it, a number of opportunities
for people to comment that were not all that crazy about some
things that they encountered. My guess is you all have seen the
same sort of thing. It is very helpful to have that. And also,
it serves to--it really serves to incentivize the provider of
the lodging to actually work a little harder to do a better
job.
How is this--is this part of what we are anticipating
doing, like if I am thinking of taking a course from School XYZ
and I can go on and look online and actually see there are 100
comments from people who are thrilled with it, delighted with
it, and then I say, oh, this is good, but I see 200 comments
from those who thought this was just a very disappointing
experience, that is going to inform my decision. How do we use
that kind of technology?
Mr. Gordon. Right. Two thoughts. I do not know if we have
that incorporated into our system, so I will have to take that
for the record and find out if that is a part of it.
information for the record
The Department does use this kind of technology. However,
the Department's formal Feedback, Concerns and Record Keeping
processes do not include a section for military students to
rate and review their college or university. This is due to the
overlapping inefficiencies we noted as we started investigating
adding this capability to our formal system. We discovered that
of the many web-based programs already in existence which rate
schools, several of which provide for student rating. Rather
than developing an additional system and duplicating efforts,
we are currently reviewing the existing programs for possible
inclusion into DOD's current system.
I think, though, that what we can also encourage or that
can grow out of this new way of education is the degree to
which our communities share information about schools that
provide quality education, for example, and if there is some
sort of assessment system for that is really more community-
based on the part of our service members. So I think that is an
area that certainly can be explored and that you see emerging,
I think, across a number of other sectors, as well, whether
they are hotels or auction services or a host of different sort
of venues.
Senator Carper. OK. Yes, ma'am? Dr. Snead.
Ms. Snead. There are a couple. The distance learning
institutions have actually set up some Web sites much as you
describe. It is not necessarily about customer feedback, but
there are sites called transparent--one is Transparency by
Design, where the institutions themselves provide you some
information about degree completion, different rates that they
have, experiences, cost, a variety of information. So I think
there can be some lessons there, whereas we are looking at
colleges and universities trying to help service members find
the right fit of institution that we use tools like that to
help provide them some information. And there are a number of
them out there. What we need is really buy-in from other
colleges and universities to be more forthcoming with that
information.
Senator Carper. So you think that what we need is more buy-
in from----
Ms. Snead. More institutions who are willing to share that
information, and so essentially open their books and say, here
is our--when we are talking about course completion rates or we
are talking graduation rates, not just their general student
population but the military student population. Let us look at
service members, how they are doing through this process,
whether they are completing their courses, and again,
satisfaction ratings are certainly good. Having dealt with
students long enough, I am also skeptical that the ``Rate My
Professor'' and a couple of those sites may or may not be the
most useful. So we just need to build in the right pieces there
to look at institutions and to look at the quality of the
program offerings that we have. What are their employment
statistics or their promotion rates once someone has completed
a degree with that institution?
Senator Carper. If I were running a school, it was for-
profit, private, public, I would--I am enrolling a lot of
students with the taxpayer dollar and I were asked to provide
course completion information, graduation completion
information, if I were proud of the work we were doing and
happy to compare that with anybody else, that could be a real
good marketing tool for me. But my sense is that we do not
always get that information.
And I was talking earlier about aligning incentives and
trying to measure success, but not everybody in the military
that is taking these courses under the Tuition Assistance
Program, not everybody wants to get a degree. Not everybody
wants to get ready to find a job when they leave the military.
But a lot of people do. A lot of people do.
When I think of how do we measure success, set aside the
people that want to learn more about auto mechanics or playing
the guitar or just things that are interesting to do and maybe
make life richer or more interesting. But those that really are
looking for improving their standing in the military, their
ability to get promotions in the military, in addition to be
successful when they leave the military, because a lot of us
have gone into second careers, third careers. But it would
certainly be helpful to know that kind of information that you
just mentioned--course completion, graduation completion, and,
frankly, it would be helpful to know something about job
placement. That would be very helpful things to know.
At the end of the day who is paying for it? Taxpayers are,
and we are way in over our head. We have a trillion-and-a-half-
dollar deficit this year. The President said, we want to out-
educate, out-compete, out-innovate the rest of the world and we
do not have a whole lot of money to play with. So it behooves
us all to figure out how to, as I said earlier, to get more
without paying a whole lot more, better results.
Let me--I want to go back to Mr. Gordon, if I can, and I
just want to make sure I have this. My staff gave me this
question and I am just going to read it verbatim. It says, from
the system in place, what have you learned? How many complaints
so far this year?
Mr. Gordon. Right. Since we have placed it--and I just want
to make sure I am correct--we have had at least 10 complaints
at our level. What we have learned, well, it is new. We have
instituted this system fairly recently. I think the big
learning is that the complaint process is being used at this
point in time and we will continue to refine it and to improve
it. But the big learning is that it provides us yet another
lens, I think, through which we can better understand some
shortcomings in the community that we can solve and resolve.
Senator Carper. Let me come back to you, Dr. Snead, if I
could. We have some public schools, public colleges, some
private colleges, we have some for-profits that are actually
doing a very good job of trying to make sure they are not
abusing anybody when they recruit, they are recruiting in a
fair and open way, in ways actually mindful of the Golden Rule
of treating other people the way we want to be treated, that
when they bring in people who, frankly, are going to be
challenged by the coursework, they try to make sure that they
get the, maybe the earlier training or the remedial work before
they actually start doing the more rigorous coursework. They
make sure that folks get tutoring if that is needed. One of the
reasons why we included tutoring in the G.I. Bill for, I think
it is about maybe, I do not know if it is a thousand dollars a
year or whatever it is, but we want to make sure that we are
not just throwing good money after bad and we are paying all
that tuition money, but to ensure that the tutoring is there if
it is needed.
But when you look at the folks that are doing a good job--I
think you had 1,800 or 1,900 colleges or universities--when you
look at the ones that are doing a good job of making sure that
folks are ready, walking them through this process, getting
their classwork done, their courses completed, hopefully get
their degrees completed if that is what they want, when you
look at the ones that are doing a really good job and those
that, frankly, are not, what can we learn from the ones that
are doing an especially good job, whether it is public, non-
profit, or for-profit?
Ms. Snead. And I think one of the defining factors is that
they have the good of the service member at the center focus of
their efforts. So they are really in touch with the needs of
the service member and they are looking at the variety of
services, and they are also providing that feedback. And as you
said, many institutions, we are spending time talking about
probably a very small number of institutions in the aggregate
when you look at that total number of institutions, and many of
them are doing great things.
They have training for their faculty members in terms of
military culture, helping them understand their military
students. They have online training for their faculty who are
going to be teaching online so it is not a professor who has
been teaching in a brick-and-mortar institution or in a
classroom for 30 years and now being given an online lesson. So
there are lots of positive things, and again, the service
member and the military student is always at the heart of that
institution when they are planning their course work, when they
are planning their curriculum. They have the best interest of
the student at heart.
Senator Carper. Mm-hmm. Mr. Scott, same question. I realize
you wear a different hat than Dr. Snead does--you probably wear
several hats--but just put your taxpayer hat on or your GAO hat
on and give me your thoughts.
Mr. Scott. Well, interestingly enough, Senator, GAO
actually has a couple of studies underway right now that are
trying to better understand this issue of outcomes and
accountability, including what might potentially be some
promising practices that we might identify as it relates to
distance education and some other areas. So with that said, I
am hoping to have more to say along those lines this fall when
those studies become public.
Senator Carper. So you think we will have something from
you this fall?
Mr. Scott. There are a number of studies that we have
currently underway that will, I believe, help inform this issue
about outcomes across all higher educational sectors. We have
an engagement going on right now looking at distance education,
what are some of the challenges with distance education, what
are some of the safeguards, what are some of the promising
practices. We are also looking at what steps is the Department
of Education taking in terms of improving its oversight of
distance education. So I believe this study is on track to be
issued this fall.
Senator Carper. Good. Do we have to wait until this fall
before we can be better informed what is going on at the
Department of Defense? That was a question I would ask of you,
or is there something that you think maybe there is a dialogue
going on or some lessons learned that you can share with them
prior to this fall? Is that possible?
Mr. Scott. Well, we are always happy to share information,
where appropriate, with the cognizant Federal agencies. I think
one of the things that is really important, especially during
this period of transition, is for the Department to work
closely with the Department of Education, both in terms of the
distance education issue, but also just more generally in terms
of the higher education community is a very large and diverse
community. And so I think to the extent that the Department of
Defense can leverage the expertise and the knowledge that is
within the Department of Education, it will really benefit them
as they transition to their new oversight regime.
Senator Carper. Mr. Gordon, do you want to take 60 seconds
on that, or do you want to pass?
Mr. Gordon. Well, I agree with that. I think we do and we
are working much more closely with the Department of Education.
The Department of Defense globally is involved in education for
kids. We have 1.2 million military children coursing through
the veins of our education system, our spouses are roughly
around 750,000 spouses, and our service members. So what it
means is developing a comprehensive education strategy is
important and working very closely with the Department of
Education is essential to do that.
Senator Carper. Good. That actually leads me into the next
question I wanted to ask, and I just want to make sure I have
this right. GAO's report, I believe, indicated that the
Department of Defense had actually fairly limited interaction
with the Department of Education. When my staff met with DOD
last, I think it was last June, they reported that there was no
formal or regular interaction between DOD and the Department of
Education on issues of fraud and on waste and quality of the
curriculum. Has that changed at all, and if so, when and how
did that change?
Mr. Gordon. Well, I have been in the Department of Defense
since July, actually July 19 of last year, and I can tell you
that I have been a party to and witness of a number of meetings
between our staff, between me, of course, and the Department of
Education so we can much more closely coordinate our efforts.
Does that mean that more can be done? Yes, and I hope to do
that. I think the beauty of this report is it helps to give us
an azimuth for how we can also collaborate in different sorts
of ways. I think the strength of the GAO is it gives you that
additional set of eyes where you can do things more and better
to improve both the quality and ensure that we are providing
the kind of access we need to education for military service
members. So I have seen collaboration, but I think we can do
better and we will continue to do so.
Senator Carper. Well, as I said earlier, everything we do,
certainly me, I know we can do better. That is why I am pleased
to see that the GAO investigation that we had requested has
helped to spur the Department of Defense and the Department of
Education to begin a better dialogue about these issues, and we
want to improve even beyond that. We would like to have seen it
happen some time ago. However, having said that, we are just
pleased to see it appears to be in effect now.
I am going to ask one more question, I think, of Dr. Snead
and Mr. Gordon, and then my last question will be sort of
asking you to--we do not often give witnesses a chance to do a
closing statement. We always ask you to do an opening
statement. I want you to give a closing statement--not now, not
now, but after I ask this next question. Just be thinking about
your closing statement, maybe just kind of reacting to what you
have heard from the other witnesses, maybe reacting to what you
heard from Senator Harkin or the questions that Senator Brown
and I asked. Just be thinking about it, if you will. While you
are thinking about that, I will ask this question.
And thanks to the efforts of Senators Webb and Durbin and
others, the Department of Veterans Affairs just announced that
it would suspend the G.I. Bill payments to several schools
because of the questionable recruiting policies that were being
used by those institutions. You will recall, Senator Webb was
really the driver in the new G.I. Bill, the most generous G.I.
Bill we have ever seen in the history of our country. Has the
DOD ever been forced--this is, again, for Mr. Gordon and Dr.
Snead, but do you know if the DOD has ever been forced to
refuse tuition assistance payments to a school or put them in a
sort of like a ``do not pay'' list? We have contractors who we
sort of have a ``do not pay'' list because they owe
obligations. They have not paid taxes to the Federal
Government. But has the DOD ever been forced to refuse tuition
assistance payments to a school or put them on a ``do not pay''
list, and is DOD maybe working with the VA to ensure that
tuition assistance payments are not just going to these same
schools?
Mr. Gordon. To my knowledge, we have not. We do not have
that sort of list. Using the military installation Volunteer
Education Review that we currently had in place, it really
portended, actually, working together with the schools to make
improvements in any anomalies or shortcomings that we found. We
felt very comfortable that through working with the MIVER
findings and making those sorts of improvements, the schools
were very responsive to that and were providing an education
for our service members.
I am knowledgeable about this recent action. The good news
is, to my knowledge, we do not have any service members who are
part of those schools that have been put on those lists, but
clearly, what it means is that we can also do more in terms of
ensuring we have coordination with the VA, because there is
that transition from active duty, when you qualify for tuition
assistance, of course, into being a veteran, where you qualify
for the G.I. Bill, and so the coordination is important.
Senator Carper. I am going to submit some follow-up
questions. One of the follow-up questions I am going to ask is,
do you think there might be some value in DOD working with VA
to ensure that the schools that they have identified as schools
that are sort of like on a ``do not pay'' schools list because
of some of their behavior, questionable behavior, objectionable
behavior, that maybe there is some overlap here that you all
should follow up on. I will ask that question----
Mr. Gordon. Absolutely.
Senator Carper [continuing]. And look forward to your
response. I would urge you to do that.
Mr. Gordon. Mm-hmm.
Senator Carper. And this would be for Dr. Snead. Has your
organization ever referred a school to an accrediting body
because of unethical or improper behavior, that you are aware
of?
Ms. Snead. Yes, we have, and, in fact, one that we have
recently been involved in, we were unable to resolve. It was
Army and Air Force issues with tuition assistance and improper
behavior on an installation, aggressive marketing, and we filed
a complaint with the accrediting body, and as a result, the
institution most recently has lost their accreditation. So that
is essentially--will be a ``do not pay'' because they will not
be accredited by that agency. Therefore, they would not be on
the Department of Education list and they would not be eligible
for tuition assistance then.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you.
Well, we very much appreciate your preparation for today
and we appreciate your testimony today and your response to our
oral questions and we look forward to responses to some written
questions.
I would just ask, how long do our Subcommittee Members have
to submit letters? Two weeks? Over the next 2 weeks, our
Subcommittee Members can submit in writing follow-up questions
within 2 weeks. We just ask that you respond to those promptly.
And now, this is a chance for each of you, if you will, to
let us have a closing statement, some reflections, just based
on what we have talked about here today. Dr. Snead, why don't
you go first, and then we will go to you, Mr. Scott, and then
Mr. Gordon. Some good take-aways for us.
Ms. Snead. Well, I think we have all discussed today the
value of the Voluntary Education Program and how it is really
important to----
Senator Carper. Let me just interrupt. One of the things I
want to ask you to do as you do this--I should have said it--
think of yourself--we are all taxpayers, all right, so we all
have a dog in this fight. This is our tax money. We care about
the men and women that serve us on active duty, and a lot of
them are putting their lives on the line for us, literally, as
we gather here today. We care about them and we care about
their families and we want them to have the best that we can
provide for them. So keep that in mind as you respond. Thank
you.
Ms. Snead. I think all of us do have the best interest in
mind and it is extremely important that we make sure that it is
a quality product that we provide. Our organization takes that
seriously. We look at colleges and universities and sometimes
we do have to ask the tough questions. Our role in this process
is really more of what I would describe as really a
facilitator. We want the institution to improve services to
their service members, to their families, and also to the
veterans. So I think our take-away is to continue to be
vigilant in the complaints and the issues that we see and
really try to do the best we can to improve on that educational
setting.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Scott, some closing thoughts, please?
Mr. Scott. Thank you again, Senator, for the opportunity to
testify today. Clearly, the DOD Tuition Assistance Program is
an important program in terms of supporting the education of
our service members and the work that we have done on this
program highlights some areas for the Department to continue to
improve upon.
Generally when I discuss oversight and what good, effective
oversight looks like, I always put it in terms of you need
clear rules, safeguards, in place to protect students and the
Federal investment. You need tools. You need an effective set
of tools to provide ongoing monitoring and oversight. And
finally, you need a range of mechanisms to hold schools
accountable.
So to the extent that as the Department of Defense moves
forward in developing its new oversight regime, I think it is
important to keep those goals in mind. Having clear rules,
safeguards in place, having a range of tools to allow you to
effectively monitor and oversee schools, and finally, having
mechanisms in place to hold schools accountable. And so to the
extent that the Department can make progress in those areas, I
think that it will just ensure that the TA funds are being
properly used and our service members are receiving the quality
education they deserve. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Gordon, please, closing thought, please.
Mr. Gordon. Well, I just want to thank you, as well,
Senator, for giving us the opportunity to testify.
My closing thoughts are our education system in this
country continues to evolve, and I think the good news about
that evolution is the potential access to education by more
citizens in the United States and our service members are a
subset of that. We do owe those service members, in fact, our
commitment to ensure that they have an access to the best
quality education, especially given our multiple deployments
and the fact that our service members are asked to sacrifice
for their country in ways that often impede their ability to
consume that education at a rate that others can.
And so what I am just delighted by is that I think we have
the kinds of partnerships and can grow them, both between DOD
and Education, Congress and GAO and our agencies, to ensure
that we can sharpen the point of a quality education for our
service members, and I am happy to be a part of collaborating
on that process.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
Let me just give a closing thought or two, if I could. I
was 17--actually, 16 years old when I learned that I had
applied too late to go to the Air Force Academy. I had been a
Civil Air Patrol Cadet and I was bitterly disappointed. I went
to three high schools. I was barely learning, like, where the
restrooms were and it was time to move on and go to another
school. I like to joke and say I went to three high schools
until I finally found one that would let me graduate, but
actually, my father kept getting transferred and we just ended
up living in a lot of different places at a tough time, tenth,
eleventh, twelfth grade. And I missed the filing deadline, the
application deadline for the Air Force Academy and was really
very disappointed. It was a sad time in my life.
And 1 day, sitting in homeroom in my high school, early
morning, doing the announcements on the homeroom, they
announced on the PA, anybody interested in winning a Navy
scholarship, go see your guidance counselor, and I did. And my
dad had been a Chief Petty Officer in World War II, spent a lot
of time in the Reserves in the Navy. So I went and I learned
about Navy ROTC and the fact that I could, if I won a
scholarship, get an education, would have a chance to get a
commission and go on and serve our country. And I wanted to do
that for, oh, about 23 years.
But I really needed some help to be able to afford to go to
college and the Navy was there to extend that help. Really,
taxpayers through the Navy were there. And I went to Ohio
State, got a good education, and have been fortunate enough to
get to go to graduate school through the G.I. Bill.
But for me, the military was a way to sort of improve my
standing, improve my ability to contribute to the society and
to play the kind of roles that I have played. I really want to
make sure that a whole new generation of young men and women
receive a similar kind of opportunity and that it is not a
hollow opportunity, but it is an opportunity that really leads
them somewhere where they want to go. Whether it is to be
better sailors, airmen, marines, whatever, we want to make sure
that they have the chance to do that. If it means finishing up
their service duty and going out and starting a business or
working for somebody else, working for a nonprofit or becoming
a teacher, we want to make sure that they have the opportunity
to do that.
Two big challenges that we face--I know I am probably
speaking to the choir here--one is the huge deficits, spending
way more money than we can afford. And the second, we compete
in a world where competition is a lot stronger than it was when
I was a senior in high school listening to those announcements
all those years ago in homeroom. So this needs our best effort.
I mentioned earlier my sort of four core values. Figure out
the right thing to do and just do it. Treat other people the
way I want to be treated. Focus on excellence in everything we
do. If it is not perfect, I like to say, make it better. And
finally, just do not give up.
We can do better here. I think we are trying to do better
here, and with the help of GAO and the good efforts of a bunch
of people in DOD and from SOC and from a bunch of the colleges,
whether they are for-profit, nonprofit, whether they are
public, a bunch of them are showing us the way to get a better
product and doing right by our young men and women, or not-so-
young men and women. We will learn from them. But the folks
that are not doing the best that they can, we need them to
measure up. This is not a threat. We want to help the ones that
are not doing the kind of job that they should be proud of or
could be proud of, we want to make sure they start doing that.
One of the things I am pretty good at is being persistent,
and when I sense that there are wrongs being committed out
there, I would like to right wrongs. I think most of us feel
that way. There is a lot of good that is being done through
this program, but there are some wrongs that are being
committed with taxpayer money, and to the best of our ability,
I just want to eliminate that and I want to eliminate it as
quickly as we can. Our servicemen and women deserve that. And
when I look them in the eye at Dover or over in Afghanistan or
Iraq or wherever they might be, I want them to know from my
heart, we are doing our best for them, and I know you feel that
way, too.
With that having been said, this is going to be a dialogue.
It is going to be a dialogue that continues. I would encourage
certain GAO and the Department of Education and the Department
of Defense, SOC, and others to be part of that dialogue, and I
would encourage the institutions themselves, whether they are
for-profit, nonprofits, publics, to be a part of that dialogue.
At the end of the day, when we have a chance to see our
sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines going out there and doing a
great job and going on and being successful with their lives,
we can feel really, really proud of them and good about what we
have helped them to accomplish.
With that having been said, thank you all very much for
joining us today and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereas, at 4:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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