Problems with Army Tuition and Credentialing Assistance (ft. Possible Solutions)

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial academic complex. - President Dwight D. Eisenhower (in an alternate universe)

The bucket of government spending on higher education and defense is around half a trillion dollars. I’d like to discuss a small drop in this combined bucket: the Department of the Army’s voluntary education program. The Army is projected to spend about $200 million on these benefits this year, which take the form of college classes (tuition assistance/TA) and preparation for certifications (credentialing assistance/CA).¹ Soldiers regularly take advantage of these opportunities for career advancement and personal development. Is this money well spent? Here’s my two cents…

The Pursuit of Stickers of Dubious Value

Attaining higher education is important for any Soldier’s career, for better or worse. On the officer side, senior leaders are expected to have graduate degrees. On the enlisted side, junior Soldiers earn promotion points for college credits. The focus of these degrees and credits is, somewhat surprisingly, irrelevant; while presumably military history, international relations, or writing classes might make Soldiers more effective, this is not an emphasis of the program.² The message is simply any education is good. This is consistent with a society-wide inflation of the importance of higher education (see, for example, the rising number of entry-level jobs that now require a bachelor’s degree, whereas a comparable job 50 years ago did not). It is a noble aim to encourage lifelong learning and personal development, but there may be more effective means to accomplish this. Moreover, not all higher education is created equally; there are many exploitative for-profit institutions that seem dedicated to providing low-quality education to Soldiers specifically. The result of this poorly-structured program is Soldiers using government funds to enrich these low-quality education providers with little return on investment to the individual or the organization.

While Army voluntary education program is rarely studied, larger programs like the post-9/11 GI bill receive a lot of attention from researchers. The results are mixed. In a 2012 Executive Order, President Obama decried the “aggressive and deceptive targeting of service members, veterans and their families by some educational institutions…” and called for greater oversight over the process.³ One study concluded there is no net-benefit to the generous post-9/11 GI Bill; while more veterans attend college and attain degrees, there is paradoxically a negative effect on their income compared to if they had never attended college.⁴ Clearly, there is some problem with education for education’s sake. If a program has no benefit for the individuals enrolling or the employer of the individual, what is the point?

Part of the problem stems from the fact that Soldiers pay back funds if they fail the class or exam. This incentivizes the use of funds for easy classes/exams that may have no real-world value. Recently, I had to sit through an advertisement for a “Lean Six Sigma” course guaranteed to earn you your “black belt” in just two weeks. The teacher suggested this certification is worth “six figures” on the outside. He was careful to imply success on the final exam was guaranteed, which is an important aspect of recruiting people to enroll. A classmate of mine who had taken the course promised: “Look guys, this is a really easy cert and it’s worth it for your resume.” If it’s easy, it can’t be valuable! If all it took was paying $4,000 to some retired Soldier to earn “six figures,” everyone would do that! The fact that the course is priced exactly at the annual limit ($4,000) made me suspicious that it was merely a scam. What value does someone who attends this course provide to the Army? I asked the Soldier who was recommending the course to describe Lean Six Sigma. She didn’t remember. At least she’s a black belt…

A Personal Experience

I recently changed my Army career path and used credentialing assistance to pursue an entry-level credential in computer networking. I wanted to use the funds (capped at $4,000 annually) to finance the exam and official study materials ($500). I looked at the approved vendors and learned that I would have to pay for a full-fledged online course. So, I scanned the list and saw George Mason University, a reputable institution, and applied for their $2,500 course. I had no way to assess the quality of the course before enrolling but I had faith in the George Mason brand.

I was wrong. This was the worst course I’ve ever encountered (even worse than my high school English class where we learned to read classic literature through watching the movie renditions). First, the materials did not cover the exam content. This is a problem when a course is specifically intended to prepare you for the exam. It seemed like the majority of the course was made 20 years ago, whereas the exam was last updated in 2019. Computer networking has changed considerably since then! Second, the “lectures” were monologues by the instructor with no visual aid. These are technical, hands-on topics but the lectures merely show the instructors face against a white background. This would be like trying to become a car mechanic by listening to a podcast on building a car. Third, the course was generally unprofessional with numerous typos, practice questions with incorrect answers, and test questions that referenced figures that didn’t exist. In short, the course had zero value to me apart from the textbook and the exam voucher.

It may be clear that I feel aggrieved about this. George Mason University is a good university. They undoubtedly have high standards in their classrooms. Yet they proffer this complete garbage to Soldiers and collect a $2,000 fee (net of the test and books). The course was significantly worse than free online resources, which I ended up using to pass the exam. To make matters worse, if I had failed the certification exam, I would have had to pay the Army back the $2,500 while George Mason had no liability or obligation to prepare me.

Conclusion

It’s worth reflecting on the motivation behind incentivizing voluntary education before considering ways to improve the program. One thought is that it helps with retention and recruiting. On the recruiting side, according to a RAND study, less than a quarter of recruits are even aware of this benefit.⁵ The GI Bill is a powerful recruiting tool, but the less-generous, more-obscure Tuition Assistance program is unlikely to be useful for recruiting. On the retention side of the coin, it’s unlikely that TA helps much. There are probably Soldiers who want to knock out as much schooling as they can while working full-time, and this may keep them some in the Army. However, if a Soldier is highly motivated to attain a college degree, it is probable that their goal is to create options outside of the military, in which case they would not want to incur the four-year additional service obligation (ADSO) associated with tuition assistance. Credentialing assistance, which carries no ADSO, likely works against retention, as it equips Soldiers with civilian-world certifications that rarely have value within the Army. Finally, the GI Bill is a much more generous benefit than TA/CA, and you must leave the Army to receive it. This would seem to hurt retention, as Soldiers who join to fund a college degree have little incentive to serve beyond earning their full GI bill benefits.^6

Another goal for the program might be to increase human capital across the work force. I think it would be hard to find someone who believes this is what is happening. I’ve already mentioned the prevalence of low-quality education providers, and even high-quality institutions that, when serving the Army population, provide low-quality products. An important part of the racket is for the courses to be easy so a) there is no chance of the Soldier having to repay the funds and b) it doesn’t take too much time or effort. It’s unlikely that a course designed with these incentives would be an effective way to build human capital. Admittedly, this incentive structure plagues regular universities too, but stricter curriculum requirements generally enforce more rigor. In short, the program would require much more oversight and a narrower scope to effectively build relevant vocational skills. Here are some steps that might help:

• Vet the vendors more carefully. This will help prevent Soldiers from signing up for low-quality courses. Perhaps there could be a mandatory one week trial program during which a prospective student could audit the course and decide whether it is worth the investment. Moreover, the education center should aggressively seek feedback from Soldiers who have completed programs.
• Require that education plausibly improve a Soldier’s ability to contribute to the Army. Determining what is relevant to the Army is a difficult and ambiguous problem. The logic seems to be that all education develops some aspect of “critical thinking” and “problem solving.” This is great, if true, but wouldn’t it be better to develop relevant skills in addition to generic cognitive abilities. While there is a large grey area, there are a few easy lines to draw. Writing class? Yes. Film studies? Probably not.
• If ensuring the quality of education is not feasible, re-examine whether education is a good in and of itself. Educational attainment is used as a proxy for human capital, but this might not be an accurate proxy.⁶ This question of whether the value of education comes from human capital development or signaling is one of the most important questions in labor economics, and it remains mostly open. All I’ll say is it might look like workforce development to have more Soldiers with college credits, but this is not necessarily a substantive increase.

In sum, the current state of Army voluntary education seems to have little benefit. In the best-case scenario, Soldiers receive sub-standard higher education. In the worst-case, they are ripped off. The Army spends this money without receiving a return in either workforce development or recruiting/retention. Indeed, the only entity that seems to benefit are the education providers, such as the retired Soldier churning out Lean Six Sigma black belts for $4,000 a pop.