Delay shouldn't affect tuition aid for ECC military students
Although Elgin Community College is one of the holdouts among local community colleges to sign on to the Department of Defense's tuition assistance program for current members of the military, ECC leaders say the delay will not affect students.
That's because the Department of Defense has revised the Memorandum of Understanding, addressing concerns of various military and educational organizations from across the country.
“I am pleased that over the past 90 days we have been able to collaborate with our partners including the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, American Council on Education, National Association of Institutions for Military Education Services and numerous Veteran Service Organizations and Military Service Organizations,” Robert L. Gordon III, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense said in a news release. “As a result, we have a stronger, clearer memorandum.”
Now that a revised memo will be released this summer, Kim Wagner, managing director of student financial services, said ECC President David Sam would sign it and any changes would not affect students' tuition.
“We are hopeful that we'll see it soon and can have it effective for the summer term coming up,” Wagner said.
The tuition program affects a handful of students at ECC each academic year, Wagner said.
The defense department said schools that currently participate in the program — like ECC — will continue to receive tuition assistance, regardless of whether or not they signed the original memo before the original March 30 deadline.
Once the new policy goes into effect this summer, only those schools that have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, either the original or revised version by the due date, will be eligible to receive assistance, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a news release.
The new memo includes guidelines that require institutions to provide a financial aid adviser to military students, outline tuition and program fees for service members and ban aggressive marketing to military students.
Wagner said school leaders felt the language of the original memo was inflexible. The memo required institutions to provide an outline of the courses a student will take, completion requirements and a fixed cost per credit for all members of the military.
“The education plan is basically like a contract for what courses the student will take and the course the Department of Defense will pay for,” Wagner said. “It doesn't give wiggle room in the next five years. And before the MOU there was no completion requirement. It was very restrictive and we wanted to know more.”