NGAUS Legislative Alert #11-29; 6 Dec 2011

The Issue: Waiving the January 1, 2012 deadline imposed by the Department of Defense (DOD) on colleges and universities desiring to participate in the Federal Tuition Assistance (FTA) program to sign DOD’s flawed Memorandum of Understanding governing the program.

Immediate Action Required: Contact your Senators and Representative to urge them to have the Department of Defense (DOD) waive the fast approaching January 1, 2012 deadline for colleges and universities desiring to participate in the Federal Tuition Assistance program to sign DOD’s flawed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

An urgent situation has arisen which puts the Federal Tuition Assistance (FTA) program at risk for members who plan to attend classes under the program after January 1, 2012. The Department of Defense is requiring all schools wishing to accept federal funds under the FTA program after January 1, 2012 to have signed a flawed memorandum of understanding (MOU).

A majority of colleges and universities have not signed for a variety of reasons, including the perception by many that it is heavily weighted in favor of for-profit institutions and largely non-protective of service members. If not corrected, this could cause thousands of cadets enrolled in ROTC programs across the country at non-signing colleges and universities to lose their FTA.

Of the more than 7,000 current Title IV- participating institutions, about 2,000 have signed the MOU, which is disproportionately composed of for-profit providers and collegiate institutions.

Several administrative provisions of the MOU are extremely burdensome, and, in some cases, legally or financially impracticable for many institutions. The MOU appears to make promises to service members that many institutions simply cannot fulfill, including representations regarding transfer of credit, prior learning, credit-by-exam, and residency. Signing the MOU will cause enormous confusion among military students as to the actual academic terms and conditions for graduation.

The MOU will do nothing to protect service members from unscrupulous providers, or clean up the waste, fraud and abuse in the Tuition Assistance Program that likely led to the current MOU requirement. Indeed, the only practical result of the MOU, if it were to stand, would be to limit service members' access to the nation's finest colleges and universities.

Several educational associations have asked the Department of Defense for a waiver of the January 1, 2012 deadline to allow time for the MOU to be revised, but DOD has refused.

Contact your Senators and Representative to urge them to demand that the Department of Defense waive the January 1, 2012 deadline for colleges and universities desiring to participate in the Federal Tuition Assistance program to sign the DOD Memorandum of Understanding governing the FTA program to allow time for the MOU to be revised.

TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTION:
By using the “Write to Congress” feature on the NGAUS Web site at www.ngaus.org, you can IMMEDIATELY e-mail your elected representatives. A sample letter is included in our “Write to Congress” feature. You can e-mail the pre-written message or edit the sample letter as you desire. This is the quickest and most effective method of expressing your views to Congress.

Also, contact your friends and family and urge them to use Write to Congress as well. For further information and background visit our web site at www.ngaus.org. Please direct any questions concerning this issue to Pete Duffy, NGAUS Deputy Legislative Director at 202-454-5307 or via email at pete.duffy@ngaus.org