Automatic Cuts Jeopardize Military Service Members' Tuition Benefits
Kyle Stokes / StateImpact Indiana
The Vincennes University campus in southwest Indiana.
While most programs receiving federal education dollars won’t feel the impacts of sequestration cuts until next school year, there are two exceptions: Head Start programming — we’ve been reporting on that — and military education.
In the Vincennes Sun-Commercial, Annie McMindes writes:
Vincennes University will have fewer active-duty servicemen taking classes as a result of the federal sequestration.
Tuesday the U.S. Air Force suspended ability of airmen to apply for college tuition stipends. Last week both the Marine Corps and the Army suspended their participation in the tuition assistance program, with the Coast Guard following suit earlier this week. The Navy is expected to suspend its participation this week, officials say…
The military education program allows service members to use their tuition assistance while they’re serving on active duty, no mater where they are in the world.
“We have programming at about 42 locations nationally, from Georgia to Seattle,” [VU’s military education program director Matt] Schwartz said. “We work with all of the branches, and we have a contract with the Navy to send CD-based courses on deployed ships and we have a face-to-face contract with the Coast Guard where we actually send a faculty member out to deploy with them when they go.
McMindes’ full story is behind the Sun-Commercial‘s paywall here.
This Inside Higher Ed story from February 1 says military tuition benefits were to be exempt from the sequester. The Huffington Post reports some lawmakers are stepping in, hoping to block the cuts.
We’ve reported on sequestration’s impacts on Indiana’s public schools from pre-K to college — and specifically on how the automatic cuts could affect special education funding.