The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities released a report this week, Best Practices for Military and Veteran Students, highlighting guidelines for serving military and veteran students to ensure their success.
“These recommendations will help improve accountability among institutions of higher learning, and as a result, benefit prospective military and veteran students seeking the training and skills necessary to succeed in the civilian workforce,” said former Congressman Steve Gunderson, the president and chief executive officer of the APSCU, encouraging all private-sector schools to adopt the recommendations in the study.
A group of for-profit institution leaders and military program directors called the Blue Ribbon Taskforce identified, discussed and documented the most effective postsecondary education practices for this very unique demographic group of students, which is composed of more than 325,000 men and women at private sector schools, for the study.
“Private-sector colleges primarily serve nontraditional students, which veterans fall under that category,” said Michael Dakduk, who served as a special adviser for the study and is the executive director of the organization Student Veterans of America. “It’s an important response from the APSCU, because the spotlight is on the for-profit sector when it comes to educating veterans.”
The report addresses recruitment and enrollment, institutional commitment for student affairs support, ensuring military student success and establishing guidelines to track success, among other things. “It’s fairly comprehensive,” noted Dakduk.
Making it clear to military students the cost of programs and providing easy access to financial information is the first tenant presented in the guidelines. Handling enrollment and financial aid can be daunting, he said, because “not only do student veterans have to navigate the bureaucracy that all students have to navigate, which is a college or university campus, they also have to navigate the bureaucracy of the federal government, otherwise known as the Department of Veterans Affairs, specifically, to get their GI benefits.”
A few things schools can do to help are: offer a tailored orientation program for this contingent of the student body; offer information on potential earnings and employment pathways on degree programs; be clear about credit transfer policies; explain Department of Defense tuition assistance and VA education benefits; and go over student loan obligations thoroughly. “Providing financial information upfront and making sure institutions are transparent about the cost of their university is important,” said Dakduk.
