GAO: Improve DoD tuition assistance oversight - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

GAO: Improve DoD tuition assistance oversight

The Pentagon plans to vastly expanding its scrutiny of schools that receive tuition assistance money and has vowed to develop a force-wide system to track complaints, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO said the military’s previous oversight effort “was narrow in scope and lacked accountability.”

The GAO investigation was requested last year by Congress and its final report was released Tuesday.

The new rules — which will oversee online-only programs for the first time — come amid growing concerns about so-called “diploma mills,” a term used to describe schools that focus on raking in tuition money and fees while providing fast and easy degrees that may not necessarily lead students to good jobs.

Military officials and online schools say online classes are ideal for troops who face frequent deployments or moves.

Lawmakers will hold a hearing about military tuition assistance programs on Wednesday afternoon.

Current rules allow troops to select any school with a basic accreditation and apply for up to $4,500 a year in tuition assistance. Pentagon spending on tuition assistance has more than tripled during the past decade, from $157 million in 2000 to more than $517 million last year.

Past oversight efforts targeted only schools that offered face-to-face classes on military bases. The level of oversight varied and had no correlation factors, such as the amount of tuition assistance money received or complaints lodged, according to the GAO report.

A new military-wide oversight system will take effect in 2012, according to the report.

The GAO suggested that all military education offices provide online training programs because “some service members have had difficulty using the course software to access discussion boards and/or submit assignments because they had not previously taken an Internet-based course,” the report said.

A GAO investigation last year found some for-profit schools used deceptive and fraudulent tactics to market their programs. The Education Department is working to develop its own set of new rules for schools that receive federal grants and loans.