House reviews quality of military off-duty education

WASHINGTON -- A House Armed Services Committee panel heard testimony from Defense Department officials Sept. 21 on the quality of off-duty servicemember voluntary education opportunities.

During 2010, an estimated 380,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines will receive $580 million in DOD tuition-assistance funding for college programs.

Robert Gordon, the deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, stressed to the committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee the importance of education opportunities to the military community.

"Education helps prepare our servicemembers to be ... better thinkers, better analysts, and better leaders who will continue to make valuable contributions to our nation," he said.

Mr. Gordon outlined voluntary education oversight programs already in place and initiatives to more closely monitor distance-learning programs.
While maintaining stringent guidelines for post-secondary schools operating on military installations, he said, the department has instituted a Military Installation Voluntary Education Review, which provides a third-party, independent review of on-installation programs.

"DOD is proactively taking this approach to quality one step further to include those programs not on our installations," Mr. Gordon said. "To that end, in the future, we will use improved quality criteria to review programs of those institutions receiving (tuition assistance) dollars that operate on and off our installations."

The new policy is in the Federal Register for public review, Mr. Gordon said.