Congress Closes Loophole That Made Veterans a Target of For-Profit Schools
The new economic stimulus package makes a tiny change that military veterans pushed for in hopes of stemming aggressive recruiting tactics.
“They heard our voices, for once, and they righted the wrong,” said Tasha Berkhalter, an Army veteran who met with lawmakers last year.Credit.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times
March 11, 2021
Military veterans have long been prized recruits at for-profit schools. The $1.9 trillion stimulus bill signed by President Biden on Thursday may change that.
For more than a decade, former service members who were defrauded by predatory institutions have pushed to close a loophole that gave an incentive to for-profit schools to enroll veterans. After a bipartisan deal last week, Congress included that change in the stimulus bill, handing veterans’ groups a major legislative victory.
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Congress is poised to send another $40 billion in aid to the nation’s colleges and universities after the Senate approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill Saturday.
The House is expected to pass the measure which contains the largest infusion of help to higher education approved by Congress during the pandemic as soon as Tuesday, sending it to President Biden for his signature.
Biden called the Senate’s passage of the bill “historic” and a “giant step forward” in providing help to Americans during the pandemic.
The money will be distributed to public and private institutions. Colleges and universities are required to spend at least half of the money on emergency grants to students. Whether undocumented and international students can get the help, however, still hasn t been decided by the Education Department.
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Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the House education committee, told reporters on Friday that the rule requires that for-profit institutions “show some semblance of attraction to people.”
However, critics of the for-profits, which have at times been found to defraud prospective students about the kind of education they’d get, have long complained the 90-10 rule has a loophole the money service members and veterans use for their education through the GI Bill at for-profits is not counted as federal dollars.
Instead, the GI Bill dollars count toward helping for-profits meet the 10 percent minimum requirement. To advocacy groups like Veterans Education Success, that incentivizes for-profit institutions to aggressively try to get service members and veterans to enroll, and many of them have been defrauded.
COVID relief package includes major change in for-profit colleges’ rules on GI Bill benefits February 10 Army ROTC cadets walk along the Brown University campus in Providence, R.I., on Oct. 13, 2016. (Steven Senne/AP) Included in congressional Democrats’ massive pandemic relief plan are rules that could upend for-profit colleges’ ability to recruit and enroll veterans in degree programs by limiting how administrators count GI Bill dollars in their finances. Advocates have long pushed for the move as a way to ensure that veterans aren’t taken advantage of by schools with questionable credentials and poor employment results. But industry officials say the move will unfairly limit veterans choices in favor of traditional, inflexible collegiate courses.
By STEVE BEYNON | STARS AND STRIPES Published: February 9, 2021 WASHINGTON Some House Democrats are hoping to terminate a GI Bill loophole that veteran advocates for years have said sets for-profit schools up to scam veterans and service members and use predatory tactics to recruit beneficiaries, according to a copy of the measure obtained by Stars and Stripes. “Predatory for-profit colleges have taken advantage of the ‘90-10 loophole’ to cheat veterans and service members out of their education benefits while providing them with a low-quality education, useless degrees, and burdening them with student loan debt, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., said in a statement. The 90-10 rule was put in place to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of federal education dollars, but for-profits have exploited the loophole to earn millions in profits.