GI Bill Consumer Awareness Act to help veterans decide

Sens.: Grade schools that take GI Bill benefits
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 27, 2012 14:26:35 EDT
A new Senate bill proposes to create a consumer report card for every school covered by Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits to disclose information about their policies on transferring credits to other schools, their average student loan debt, their course or degree completion rate, and how many graduates find jobs in their chosen fields.

The GI Bill Consumer Awareness Act is the latest effort by lawmakers to provide a warning to those using generous veterans’ education benefits that some schools may make big promises but deliver very little.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairwoman and chief sponsor of the bill, said it is a response to “stories of frustration, confusion and even manipulation.”

“We have seen that in certain instances, our service members and veterans have been misled just to boost enrollment of students with this very lucrative benefit,” she said, referring mostly to some for-profit schools that use recruiters or salespeople to sign up students.

“We have seen reports of veterans who utilize the benefit for one school only to find out that when they want to move on to graduate school, the degree they received from the first school is inadequate,” Murray said.
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