J-CLEAVE

There is a lot of apprehension about GI Bill 2.0, and what we as Columbia student-veterans intend to do about it. Responding to a lot of requests, I am writing this post in order to clarify our intent to move forwards with a robust, sustained, and long-term effort to revise GI Bill 2.0 in the interests of student-veterans at Columbia as well as peer institutions.


[Brief Overview]
The overall intent of this effort is to change GI Bill 2.0 to reflect the spirit of the original GI Bill and its Post-9/11 successor. Under the original bill a veteran could attend any institution they wanted at zero-cost and a living stipend. Under the Post 9/11 GI Bill, students at all public universities were able to do this as well as some private universities with the aid of the Yellow Ribbon Program. Because of the particulars of the legislation, the amount the federal government contributed to private universities varied widely from state to state. Private universities in states with high-cost public schools like New York and Virginia benefited while private universities in other states like California (where tuition is low) struggled to open their doors to student-veterans--that was what GI Bill 2.0 intended to correct.

Now, in the legislative process a set of factors and compromise produced a bill that is less than ideal for many, and downright bleak for others. The effort to keep the bill zero-cost pushed the national cap further and further down to $17,500. They included the mandatory fee payments into that $17,500 figure. The didn't introduce a grandfather clause. Any third-party scholarships will be deducted from your received benefits. The bill looks less like the old GI Bill and more like a robust version of the Montgomery GI Bill, which had a flat rate that appreciated over time.
The problem I see with a bill like this is that first of all the $17,500 cap is insufficient to begin with (since they used the average cost of all private educational institutions, to include trade schools, vocational technical schools, etc. in addition to private non-profit four year degree granting universities), and if the Montgomery GI Bill taught us anything, the cost of education will rise faster than this cap will be able to provide for over time (the Montgomery GI Bill was tied to the CPI-the consumer price index-which the cost of education far outpaced in the three decades since it was originally passed). For those of us who attended Columbia on the Montgomery Bill, the $1200/month ended up being beer money (which helped us deal with all the accumulating student loans!).

The above overview admittedly is not the full picture. I have abstained from inputing all the data available to me since all of us still have school to attend to, but I wanted to broadly paint a picture on where we are at in order to contextualize and set the foundation for our future actions. To boil it down to a single figure, a Columbia student must take a 15-point program every semester for 8 semesters in order to graduate in a normal 4 year academic cycle (on average, we need 124 credits to graduate, but this is simplified for clarity of argument). Right now on a 15-point program a Columbia student-veteran under GI Bill 1.0 gets a $30,300 baseline payment, not including fees, not including the YRP. Under 2.0, that baseline payment goes down to $17,500 and includes fees. The rest must be made up by the student and the YRP.

The GS administration has hinted that they will maintain there commitment to covering 100% of the remaining cost of education under the Yellow Ribbon Program, including students that will be studying under 2.0. Right now the administration is crunching the numbers and figuring out how much the bill will increase the cost per student. Right now everyone is still waiting for the VA to clarify its rules, which should be finished at some point next month. It is a relief that the university will be continue to support us, but it comes at a price, and economically the number of veterans we have and will have in the future will inevitably drop.

This bill does not disenfranchise the elite private institutions, it disenfranchises future student-veterans who are able and willing to attend the highest quality institutions but will be forced to make a decision based on economic circumstance rather than academic potential. It is no secret that the main beneficiaries of these bills has been proprietary schools (for-profit colleges), and I'll be damned to incentivize that option to new student-veterans. So to combat this, we are creating a lobbying effort to change the bill and increase access to high-quality institutions.

The committee will be initially composed of 5 student-veterans chosen by the Executive Board that are currently well-interfaced with the administration, financial sponsors, and the political landscape. The goal of these 5 individuals is to lay out an initial timeline and organizational structure to incorporate the energy and talent of 300 disenfranchised student-veterans. The term of these 5 will be time-bound so we can pass the torch onto the new members as they learn the landscape and begin interfacing with the administrators et al that will aid us in our efforts. I myself will participate actively until the 15th of March as the committee stands up, then serve as a resource, advisor, and outside coordinator.

Here are some excerpts from the initial proposal presented to Dean Awn and Dean Rogers:

I. Proposed Mission Statement:
a. The purpose of J-CLEAVE is to promote legislation that enables veterans to receive the same degree of financial support from the government to access and attend the highest quality 4-year private institutions as it does with 4-year public institutions in the spirit of the original GI Bill passed in 1944

II. Primary Goals:
a. Compile data using university statistics on enrollment and the regulatory environment from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs in order to assess the impact of the new GI Bill on Columbia students (veterans as well as the school-wide financial aid packages) and college students in general
b. Draft multiple versions of possible legislation that would mitigate 2.0’s effect on educational access
i. Tentative problems:
1. Hold harmless clause is undefined
2. Grandfather clause absent
3. $17,500 cap is insufficient
c. Identify other academic, public, and private institutions that also have a vested interest in changing 2.0 and coordinate efforts in organizing, fundraising, and lobbying.

III. Secondary Goals:
a. Identify lawmakers in districts with academic institutions affected negatively by 2.0, coordinate with those institutions to approach their respective representatives
i. Strategy: Enlist local support, then move onto state and national support
ii. Create and funnel excess personnel into activist and letter-writing campaigns to local politicians nationally.
b. Create, coordinate, and control a media plan supporting our goals on the campus, local, regional, and national media markets.
i. Create Columbia-sponsored video providing personal testimonials of Columbia veterans, direct them towards the public and Congress
ii. Strategy: Publicize positives, mitigate negatives, and create controversy in areas of logical contradiction (i.e. 2.0 benefits for-profit institutions disproportionately while indebting high-achieving veterans)
c. Enlist the help and coordinate with additional Veterans Service Organizations, though not relying on them.

IV. Structure: [Omitted because the original is obsolete, details mentioned above]
Executive committee creates other committees and staffs them as it sees necessary, i.e. Media and Public Affairs, School Outreach, Fundraising, Legislative, etc.

V. Timeline:
a. February: Finalize Organizational structure, governing rules; complete study on 2.0 impact on CU students; begin fundraising
i. Finalize structure and membership NLT 25FEB2011
b. March: Launch local media campaigns; create content for digital media, launch web initiative; reach out to additional educational institutions; survey D.C. and build initial lobbying networks
c. April: Solidify educational institution network; begin bi-weekly lobbying trips (multiple teams rotating through); release digital media to state/regional government networks
d. May, June, July, August: Deploy lobbying teams to D.C. for the summer; continue to use NYC for its media market and fundraising,
e. August and beyond: If 2.0 is still in place, continue to keep J-CLEAVE in place, convert to long-term strategic lobbying for the school year; ramp up efforts into the summer

VI. Conclusion:
a. Failure is not an option.
b. If 2.0 remains in place after August 2011, make the committee semi-permanent, convert to a long-term posture and continue mission
c. Put in maximal effort, but understand that replacing 2.0 may take years
d. Tasks to members present:
i. Compile list of student-veterans, faculty, administrators and staff able and willing to put in the time to making this endeavor a success.

I know that this seems like a rambling post, but I am a rambling person and supporting Milvets' move towards transparency. Remember this is not just about us, this is about our buddies fighting overseas right now, and the generations of veterans that will follow. We need to make sure they have access to the opportunities we so briefly have.

Please comment below if you have any general comments, corrections, or suggestions. I can be reached at jhm2135@columbia.edu

John McClelland
President Emeritus