Veterans group suspends chapters at for-profit colleges

Veterans group suspends chapters at for-profit colleges
By Justin Pope
The Associated Press
Apr 05, 2012

A leading student veterans group is suspending chapters at 40 for-profit colleges, saying it's concerned they've been set up by the colleges as shell organizations to help them appeal to veteran students who carry lucrative government tuition benefits.

The schools may be creating what are essentially fake SVA chapters to help them qualify for lists of "military friendly" or "veterans friendly" colleges that are proliferating in guidebooks and online, Student Veterans of America executive director Michael Dakduk said Thursday. On some lists, the existence of an SVA chapter at a school figures into the formula.

The organization, which has 417 campus chapters, said it would not name the for-profit schools while it investigated further. But Dakduk said that during recent membership renewals, SVA discovered numerous chapters listing as contacts people SVA later identified as school employees, not student veterans, and that chapter websites simply redirected anyone interested to the colleges' pages.

He said SVA has occasionally encountered the issue before, including at not-for-profit universities, but he said the recent discovery amounted to a much more widespread pattern. read more here