Mellow Yellow

Written by J.B. Bissell

MAE 2010 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 (February)

On paper, it was a no-brainer. For veterans pursuing a college diploma, the Post-9/11 GI Bill pays only up to the cost of the highest public undergraduate tuition in the veteran’s home state. In other words, if tuition at State U is $10,000 per year, and that’s the most expensive local public school, then veterans are eligible for $10,000 of assistance. But what if the veteran wants to attend a more pricey private institution, go for a graduate degree, or even attend an out-of- state school?

That’s where the Yellow Ribbon Program comes in. It was designed to help offset the costs of those sorts of endeavors and is a joint effort between the Department of Veterans Affairs and individual institutions. The arrangement states that participating colleges and universities can pledge up to 50 percent of the difference between their tuition and a veteran’s allocated funds from the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and that the VA will then match the school’s contribution. In the end, it means that veterans can often earn their degree—at whatever college they choose—essentially for free.

Again, it sounded like a slam-dunk; veterans should be able to go to school wherever they please, and use their muchdeserved benefits to make it financially feasible. But Susan K. Hattan, senior consultant at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, remembers some uneasy moments during the early stages of development. “Before it got started,” she said, “everyone was asking, ‘How many schools are going to sign up?’ and we were saying, ‘We don’t know.’

“We deal with private, non-profit institutions, and there’s a lot of diversity in that sector. We talk about different schools being a ‘good fit,’ and sometimes the local public colleges are great fits for people. But our schools offer some unique qualities in terms of size or offerings. Since we don’t have state subsidies, though, our prices are higher. So we saw the Yellow Ribbon as a real partnership—and we thought there would be a lot of interest, but, honestly, we didn’t know.”

As it turns out, Hattan and her colleagues had very little to worry about when it came to their membership. “There have been about 750 that have signed up,” Hattan said. “That’s a pretty high number, particularly since it was the initial year the program was in operation.”

And it wasn’t just the schools that were signing up. “This first year, we have hosted close to 150 Yellow Ribbon Program participants, and have a total certified student veteran population that has increased by about 10 percent to about 330 students,” said Andrew Sonn, Ed.D., director of student and academic support services at George Washington University in Washington D.C.

THE FIRST MAJOR ROADBLOCK

While staff and students at George Washington wasted no time in implementing the Yellow Ribbon Program (after all, said Sonn, “it continues the institutional legacy of serving our nation’s veterans, from our being named after the nation’s most famous veteran to being the institution that hosted the first recipient of the 1944 GI Bill, Don A. Balfour”), schools in California had a semantic obstacle to overcome before they could begin true participation.

“In California, we don’t charge a ‘tuition’ when you go to school,” explained J.P. Tremblay, deputy secretary at the California Department of Veterans Affairs. “In other states you pay a flat tuition for up to a number of units that you take. Here, you pay a ‘fee’ for each unit that you carry.”

Unfortunately, this little difference in the wording of how California state colleges issue charges caused some major glitches when it came time for veterans to start bridging the financial gap to private schooling. The benefits are ultimately predicated on each state’s public institution’s tuition, and California simply had none.

“The VA had a formula set up that calculated tuition and not fees,” said Tremblay. “It was creating problems with the compensation of the Yellow Ribbon Program because, basically, it came out that there wasn’t any tuition in California, and so matching monies started out at zero. That sure doesn’t help.

“We have some very good private universities here that were interested, but just couldn’t make it work.” They were basically unable to pledge enough to make the cost manageable when each veteran was starting out with nothing because of the definition of “fees” verses “tuition.”

From the veterans-turned-students’ perspective, it was deemed a bureaucratic roadblock keeping them from chasing their dreams, whether those aspirations involved music school or a degree from Stanford. But it wasn’t that all the necessary parties didn’t want to find a solution— at one point, congressional action was even considered—certain issues just needed to be addressed.

The main source of concern for the VA was that they didn’t want to be paying for the various student activity, association, and other fees that many universities charge—and seemingly could have easily fallen under the “fees” category of the California colleges. “They wanted to know the money was going toward educational time in a classroom for those veterans,” said Tremblay, as opposed to intramural athletics or other recreational, non-academic pursuits.

Still, everybody “wanted to get this fixed so that veterans coming back could get into the college they wanted,” the deputy secretary pointed out—and so even as the scholastic year approached, Tremblay and his staff worked for a solution.

“We just needed to get people to see that we were all talking about the same thing. So we got on the phones and went to meetings and explained and documented that when we said a fee, it wasn’t just a student enhancement cost, it actually was for class time—educational fees that students have to pay. To anybody else looking at it, you’d say it was tuition. So that’s how they calculate it now, based on a per unit fee.”

And it got worked out in August, just before the first semester kicked off. “To me,” added Tremblay, “it’s one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of federal and state governments and the educational system working together effectively and efficiently to get something done very quickly, in a matter of about two months. People always talk about bureaucracies being so cumbersome, but this was one of those times when it actually worked right.”

MOVING FORWARD

Other potential setbacks still exist, of course, namely the still-struggling economy, which obviously is going to take much more than a couple of months to fix. It’s a simple fact that when the money belts are cinched, various ‘for the good of the people’ programs must also be tightened up. For now, however, optimism remains high. “It’s been relatively quiet,” said Hattan. “I take that as a good sign.”

The way that the Yellow Ribbon contracts are set up, each school must sign an agreement that specifies how many students they’ll support, and what the monetary level of that support will be, one year at a time. Those were due last June for the current enrollment period. “As far as I know,” Hattan said, “colleges are honoring the promises they set.

“In terms of what they’re planning for the future, I don’t know yet because they haven’t opened the application process for the coming academic year.”

Hattan has experienced this sort of uncertainty before. Back when the program was just getting started, there was no telling how many schools would actually be interested. Now, the question is how many will still be interested—or if any new ones will be.

“I’m really using that experience— from the first time around,” she said. “We were fairly optimistic, and I still am. This is year one. It got off to a good start, and now more people are going to know about it. I’m expecting that we’ll continue to see growth.”

One place where there seems to be no question about the commitment to the Yellow Ribbon is at George Washington University. “We’ll be planning for the renewal pretty soon as our tuition and fees are set in mid-February,” Sonn said. He, for one, views the country’s economic woes not so much as an academic crisis, but more of a scholastic opportunity: “The program comes at a great time, during which we can assist students to finance a world class education.”

STUDENT BODY DIVERSITY

The great thing about the Yellow Ribbon Program, however, is that it’s not just about these colleges and universities helping the veterans. The veterans themselves are making a positive impact on the schools.

“Teachers really do value diversity,” Hattan said. “The chance to find folks who might not have considered college”—or who might not have originally considered a smaller, private institution—“is a pretty exciting idea.”

Tremblay agrees, and has heard from various college presidents and professors that the most exciting part is what the veterans can bring to the classroom. “They appreciate the fact that when a veteran comes in, they’ve got life experiences that most of the students don’t have,” he said. “Most of the kids coming in right out of high school, they’re 18 years old, lived with mom and dad all of their life … but then you’ve got a veteran who may have been in a combat zone or stationed over in China or wherever around the world. They’ve got real world experience, and they bring that to the student environment. Professors believe that is a very positive educational tool.”

As a matter of fact, at San Diego State University, the administration has gone a few steps further to get veterans involved on campus. “They’ve taken the house of a fraternity that had to be shut down and given it to the Student Veterans of America group,” Tremblay explained. “[The administration] figured you put these veterans—people who are disciplined, focused, and know how to achieve an objective—on campus, and they’re going to be a good influence for the rest of the students. It makes a lot of sense.”

The bottom line is that for many veterans, going back to school does make a lot of sense, and Yellow Ribbon makes it possible to choose from a wider array of options, or even seek out specific programs that previously may have been financially out of reach.

Sonn summed it up well: “With this program, veterans have the opportunity to hone existing skills, gain new skills and continue to serve our country and its communities.” ♦

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