Army suspends tuition assistance program for troops

This is the Pentagon Budget request for Fiscal 2013.


(Source of Chart / Source of Budget Request )

Now, how can they work with numbers like that and justify this?

WIESBADEN, Germany — The Army announced Friday it is suspending its tuition assistance program for soldiers newly enrolling in classes due to sequestration and other budgetary pressures.

“This suspension is necessary given the significant budget execution challenges caused by the combined effects of a possible year-long continuing resolution and sequestration,” Paul Prince, an army personnel spokesman at the Pentagon, wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes. “The Army understands the impacts of this action and will re-evaluate should the budgetary situation improve.”

“Every commercial, every brochure, has money for college written all over it … recruiting us into the Army and then taking away one of the main reasons we joined is a bit hypocritical,” said Barina, who added that as an 11-year Army veteran, it’s his junior troops he is concerned about. “There are so many things that cost a lot of money and don’t need to take place that are not getting the ax.”

Source: Stars and Stripes

In over a half TRILLION dollars, the most important and serious thing to cut for Obama's sequestration order are the tuition support levels to help these guys improve themselves?

Under current law, the Department of Defense Tuition Assistance program provides any active duty service member a benefit equivalent to $250 per credit hour up to $4,500 per year.

Active duty troops are allowed to take courses that are more expensive than this, but
must pay the difference out-of-pocket or through student loans.

Similar to the Defense Commissary Agency, the military‘s tuition assistance program is
promoted to enhance recruiting, readiness, and retention for the military

(Source: DOD Report on Programs to cut or reduce)

I understand the program isn't first designed for their self improvement. Nothing in Government is EVER about benefit to the individual. However, the end result here is 100% benefit (and not THAT much of it, to be honest on the numbers there) for individual men and women who won't be in the military forever. Why not see them use these educational benefits?

If this is a program that needs to be or should be cut, then lets hear the moves and logic behind cutting it during open and public debate. That is the purpose and function of the House of Reps. This program was initiated in 1998 and under a very different President and nation. It seems a shame to just hack and slash things like this while crap like multi-hundred million dollar cost over-runs are greeted with a sigh and a new check to cover the expenses at DOD.

It seems all the small things that make that little difference in life are what are being targeted. Never the BIG stuff with billion dollar price tags per copy. Just the little things, hitting the little people who..let's face it, generally didn't vote for this President anyway..right?

Hell of a way to run a nation.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


As it stands now, that program wouldn't even cover the cost of attending a JC.

Most 4yr state universities are running, at least, about 20k/year. I remember in the early 90's you could to a 4yr state school on this program with very little extra expense to pick up.

And yet, they keep saying how the military wants "the best and brightest". . . . As long, as that doesn't get in the way of building Resettlement Camps or supplying terrorist orgs with weapons, apparently.


ETA - how well do you think recruiters will do these days when they can't pitch money for college?????

Yeah I love that I'm taking my final class right now to better improve my abilities within society. I cannot purse my degree in digital forensics because I have no tuition and will have to try pell grants now.

Thanks current administration

Cutting education funding is never a good thing for a nation to do. Sadly, I think axing the Tuition Assistance program is only the first step.

I remember in 2008-2009 when the army lowered its standards to allow felons and retards in. They couldn't get enough warm bodies to send to the sand pit. Nor they're slashing the size of the armed forces, and I think they're gonna do it by attrition. When service members lose the only thing that made the join in the first place (education benefits) we're going to have an awful lot of unhappy troops.

I used the TA program when I was in the Marines and it's really a lifesaver. Shame it's being cut. Now I'm out and in school on the GI Bill. I've got a bad feeling we'll start seeing cuts there too.

Oh were building more prisons we better cut military benefits to underpayed soldiers and sailors who are dedicating themselves to jobs and live that dont even translate into civilian life.

That will help us build a better tomarrow.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Hopefully they will still be offered CLEP and DANTES exams for free. When I was in I never took advantage of TA, but I've milked every dime out of my Post 9/11 GI Bill

reply to post by johngrissom


Pell Grants . . . well good luck with that. Those max out at about $5500 and that's per year, not semester.

More and more you have two choices . . . Fed Student loans or talk your parents into getting Parent Plus loans.

I can remember the big push for "everyone" to go to college (as opposed to trade/tech schools) in the late 70's/early 80's and amped up again in the early 90's.

Well . . . then there were no skilled laborers. Just a lot of people looking for white collar work. Looks like we'll be heading back the other way . . . real soon.

reply to post by solomons path

You're pretty much correct on all that. I just checked my own school finance account and tuition for this semester is running me $2,205 with supplies, lab fees and everything else. That's undergraduate at a Comm College and 13 Credit hours this time. This one is ranked among the lowest cost for my state which happened to come as a happy surprise by coincidence of location. I don't even want to consider what happens when I move up to the State University to get into the serious course work soon.

Any amount helps tho...and they just can't seem to stop cutting the little guys. It was prior to the war but not by much as a trainee I had was explaining what 20 years in the Army Transportation units was like. He bought his own CB radios for his guys because apparently, radio communication for ALL vehicles in a convoy is considered entirely unnecessary. It's just shocking to see what Government calls important and not. (tries to imagine not having radio communication in an 18 wheeler driving in a line of traffic across bad roads....errr...no)

Having been in The US Army (Active Duty) and a recruiter, I believe you are mis understanding the tuition Assistance program with the Army College Fund.

The Army College Fund is part of our Contract when you enlisted, the amounts are different depending oh how many years you serve or your scores on the ASVAB. These are paid out once you leave the Military and attend College or Tech school

The Tuition Assistance is for those who are still on Active Duty that want to further there education to meet their personal goals or Promotional goals, all the classes a Soilder takes are credited (sp) to future colleges and courses set by the American Counsel of Education (ACE).

I have seen them cut these programs before due to budget concerns, the different University that are on Military insulation around the world The Goverment pays them to be there for the soilders as well.

This is nothing new, but a caution though is the States (National Guards) can cut there college funds, this is were a new recurit for the Guard needs to read the find print

reply to post by 19KTankCommander

Indeed. It's the state side people I'm concerned about most since I know at least one Army Guardsman in courses from last semester. I know he's using Army benefits to attend while still in. This is specifically cutting it off for new applicants to the program or people who had planned on using the benefits but hadn't started yet by how I read it. That's rough too though. This far out, that kills the Fall semester for everyone who may have considered it.

The Stars and Stripes article also links back a bit into other things which refer to distance and online learning as being a direct part of what is done by active troops. 70% or something, as I believe I'd seen. I know distance learning once meant "Matchbox U" and toilet paper for a degree. These days though, everyone from my local Comm College up to Harvard are offering some of or entire courses online. I'd imagine this hurts in that sense more than anything else.

The Tuition assistance program may not be on the contract when you enter the Army, but Ive never seen a recruiter miss an opportunity to tell a recruit how the Army pays 100% of your tuition while your on active duty. It is used as a recruiting tool. Ive seen this program run out of funds many times but its better than it used to be when it only paid 75%. Fact is when money gets tight programs like these that help the troops are the first ones to get cut.

The ink on the post 9/11 GI bill wasn't even dry yet before they passed a post 9/11 GI bill "reform" bill which cut alot of money out in sneaky ways

so this is what finally collapses the pyramid scheme known as higher education.

A dramatic cutback in suckers(students) will cause a domino effect in tuition prices. All of this ocestrated by some religious fundies in the government who want to see the world collapse so jesus will come back.

disgusting, yet predictable.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


With all the soldiers that are dipping into the tuition assisatance programs more and more colleges are seeing dollar signs. and making it more exspensive.

Having done both online and classroom, I had a buisness major once tell us this "College is two things, first and foremost a place to get a quality education and Secound its a money making institution"

reply to post by 19KTankCommander

Well, with respect to your real world and considerable experience with this system, what is a good way to proceed with it? The report the OP program description comes from suggested it for total elimination, across the board and as a whole. It said it was a redundancy and double dip from other programs already in place. Those weren't the details I was focused on for this thread but the link is up there to read the full context on that.

Is it something that would be legitimate to reduce or cut? Now I don't favor HOW or WHY any of this is happening, regardless. These cuts are all coming in a mean spirited and deliberate way to inflict pain as publicly and as strongly as possible. Secondary to that though and if this weren't the mechanism doing it...... You have me curious for your take on this in a more general way?

Better yet eliminate the many perks and freebees that our officials enjoy....like legal insider trading......
Why should we pay a huge bill for the potus to play a round of golf?
The upper class act like tax money is their money.....like it is some kind of discretionary spending allowance...instead of the sweat of our labours.....
No working man would play such frivolous games with his pay check.......nor would he seek to bankrupt the company.....these guys are collapsing the American economy to take control of the country....

A lot of colleges and universities have lowered tuition cost but raised fee costs. Most tuition assistance programs and GI bill only cover tuition and not the fees. I've noticed this happening more and more often.

When I first went to college most of my school bills were easily paid for by my grants and such, but as the years went by, I had to pay more and more out of pocket because of the tuition being lowered and the fees being increased. A very shady business...

Cut the one program that actually gives us better citizens contributing to the economy.
But ignore the following:
The USAF Thunderbirds
The Navy Blue Angels
The US Army Golden Knights
All of the Military Bands and singing groups etc... Bands alone are more than 500 million dollars to fund.
All are for recruitment (No shortage of recruits, we are actually cutting people) and for Morale.

Obama continues to travel, His wife travels and now his daughter went to NY with some friends. All funded by the Taxpayer. Maybe he could stay home for a while during these trying times.
I for one am getting frustrated that this guy cant evaluate a program and make cuts appropriately.
Maybe we could end the Federal unemployment mandate, after all, each worker pays into unemployment and the Obama admin added the federal mandate for when the state allottment runs out.
Some people will not look for work until they face losing their unemployment.
I am dumbfounded at the complete lack of fiscal sense this government has shown.
I love my country and i'm proud of my country but i am deeply ashamed of my government.

reply to post by Lostmymarbles


The GI bill covers tuition and fees. I use it every semester.

Tuition assistance only covers tuition

The Military is a volunteer job just like any other. If you do not want to operate under the conditions of the job do not take the job.Under a draft members of the Military have a just cause to complain about benefit changes. In the current Military it is a job. If you do not want the working conditions do not take the job.

Further discussion on sequestration became moot when the congressional wench said that reducing congressional pay would be demeaning. It was further minimalized when some idiot said that they couldn't lower congressional pay because to do that, they'd have to pass a law.

If that isn't obvious enough, I don't know what more to say. The federal governement has become an entity upon itself and is no longer representative. Party doesn't matter either, it's just a cover to keep people busy thinking that our problems are because either dems or reps are in power at the time.

The simplicity (read Occam's Razor here) is amazing. How could congress and presidents ad infinitum be SO RIDICULOUSLY IRRESPONSIBLE with a federal budget for so long? It's been going on ever since the formation of the FEDERAL RESERVE. The federal government is 'involved' in so many programs that are beyond their charter, it's pitiful. They have absolutely NO BUSINESS in charity and NO BUSINESS in any program that doesn't benefit every man, woman, and child in the US equally and any program they're involved in is supposed to be for 'the general welfare'. Running a federal budget into the ground, running up a debt, and proposing a defecit spending budget year after year is simply irresponsible. And those who are responsible for this irresponsibility ought not to get paid one red cent. PERIOD. ("full stop" for you limeys).

Reducing benefits to our troops is what I'd expect out of these idiots, and complicity by the flag officers in the military only makes sense, because how many of them plan on attending classes while they're in the mid to late 50's?

The whole thing is so idiotic and destructive to the average american while being so protective of politicians and wealthy americans that there absolutely has to be a plan in there. There IS, beyond a doubt, a CONSPIRACY.