The pandemic thrust higher education institutions into virtual delivery almost overnight, but active-duty military members had been learning online for years already.
Experts say lesser-resourced campuses, especially some historically Black universities and colleges (HBCUs), can tap into their potential to compete for these students — and the millions of dollars in federal tuition assistance that follows them — by honing their virtual delivery models.
A sailor studies in the interactive courseware classroom to successfully pass Basic Engineering Common Core's at the Surface Warfare Engineering School Command.
Webster University is one of several institutions intentionally reaching out to active-duty service members who want to go to school. For more than 40 years, Webster has provided military education through virtual, hybrid and in-person courses. Neal noted that an all-online transition in the pandemic was fairly straightforward for Webster because of its history educating military students.
Money on the table
Each year, the federal government’s Department of Defense (DoD) pays almost $500 million in tuition assistance for service members to attend qualifying institutions. Such service members include those in the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps. In fiscal year 2020, military tuition assistance totaled more than $487 million for more than 236,000 participants in about 690,000 courses, according to DoD public data.
But to be eligible to receive the federal disbursements, institutions need to follow the DoD’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a military-friendly campus.
