Veterans shafted by "substandard" colleges in California

GI Bill funds failing for-profit California colleges
Center for Investigative Reporting
Aaron Glantz
June 30, 2014

Over the last five years, more than $600 million in college assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been spent on California schools so substandard that they have failed to qualify for state financial aid.

As a result, the GI Bill — designed to help veterans live the American dream — is supporting for-profit companies that spend lavishly on marketing but can leave veterans with worthless degrees and few job prospects, The Center for Investigative Reporting found.

"It's not education; I think it's just greed," said David Pace, a 20-year Navy veteran who used the GI Bill to obtain a business degree from the University of Phoenix's San Diego campus.

Although taxpayers spent an estimated $50,000 on Pace's education, he has the same blue-collar job he landed right after he left the service: running electrical cable for a defense contractor.

Financial records analyzed by CIR show that California is the national epicenter of this problem, with nearly 2 out of every 3 GI Bill dollars going to for-profit colleges.

The University of Phoenix in San Diego outdistances its peers. Since 2009, the campus has received $95 million in GI Bill funds. That's more than any brick-and-mortar campus in America, more than the entire 10-campus University of California system and all UC extension programs combined.
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