J-CLEAVE UPDATE

Joint Committee Lobbying for Equal Access to Veterans Education

Summary:
1) Update on meeting with Congressman Jon Runyan
2) Initial JCLEAVE Meeting
 

1) Update on meeting with Congressman Jon Runyan

Yesterday on February 4th, I made the trip to southern Ne
w Jersey to meet with Congressman Jon Runyan, a freshman Republican representative from the 3rd district of New Jersey. I didn’t plan on beginning the lobbying effort so early, but due to the magnitude and anxiety over the changes to the GI Bill many student-veterans have (rightfully) contacted their Representatives. I am not a constituent of Congressman Runyan nor a resident of New Jersey, but one student veteran is and was proactive enough to arrange a meeting withe the Congressman.

Lior Keet is a former Navy Officer and Executive MBA student at Columbia Business School who arranged the meeting and asked me to attend as a resource for the discussion. I obliged and did some research in order to produce a tentative document/handout with bullet points outlining our argumentation. Here is a copy of what I produced (admittedly the morning of the meeting):
Equal Access to Veterans Education:
Promoting Leadership and Social Mobility to America’s Finest

[I had a nice color Milvets logo in the heading, heavy gauge paper--have to pull out the stops!]

* Problems with the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010
o $17,500 national cap is calculated by averaging the cost of private non-profit institutions as well as vocational-technical schools and proprietary schools (career schools, for-profit)
o $17,500 national cap includes mandatory fees as well as tuition
o Reduces access to private non-profit institutions
o Makes veterans choose between academic potential and economic circumstance
* ROI
o Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 “Original GI Bill”
+ Paid full cost of education
+ Provided multiple resources such as a living stipend and home loan guarantees to veterans who have limited independent resources
o Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008
+ Pays full cost of public education, private education varied markedly from state to state
+ Provides living stipend
o Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010
+ Pays full cost of public education, private education set at national rate of $17,500 and includes vocational-technical schools
+ Provides non-contiguous living stipend (no stipend during winter, spring breaks)
* Courses of Action (in order of precedence, importance, and feasibility in the current economic and political environments):
o Introduce “Grandfather Clause” giving veterans the option of operating under the old legislation for the remainder of their benefits
+ Veterans made a decision to go to school based on academic potential. Reducing benefits in the middle of their education without a “Grandfather Clause” amounts to abrogating a contract
o Limit federal dollars to for-profit and unaccredited institutions
+ De-incentivize veterans from attending institutions who have little to no credibility within the job market. These institutions are the equivalent of predatory lenders and will not contribute meaningfully to the private and public sectors.
o Eliminate $17,500 cap and provide benefits covering the full cost of 4-year education
+ The “Original GI Bill” provided for the full-cost of education. Every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending and tax revenue[1]



Top Schools receiving benefits (Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008):[2]

UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX - ONLINE CAMPUS
Arizona
6176 (number of veterans)
$34,827,935

AMERICAN INTERCONTINENTAL UNIVERSITY
Illinois
2192
$20,695,156

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (not affiliated with the University of Maryland)
Maryland
2629
$11,537,648

FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY
Florida
473
$10,128,480

COLORADO TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ONLINE CAMPUS
Colorado
1210
$10,085,725

UNIVERSAL TECHNICAL INSTITUTE
Arizona
595
$10,067,713

ECPI COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY
Virginia
1061
$9,132,035

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY (SAN DIEGO)
California
1276
$8,188,650

ASHFORD UNIVERSITY (ON LINE)
Iowa
2131
$8,071,754

OLD DOMINION UNIV,MILITARY STUDENTS SVCS
Virginia
1211
$8,032,963

Top New Jersey Schools receiving benefits:

Montclair State University
New Jersey
124
$838,463

Bergen Community College
New Jersey
221
$860,741

Thomas A. Edison State College (On Line School)
New Jersey
272
$919,629

Rutgers the State University
New Jersey
94
$926,652

Rutgers the State University - Newark
New Jersey
112
$1,033,984

Rutgers the State University
New Jersey
156
$1,506,004

Disclosure:

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
New York
211
$5,920,763


[1] Hume, Edward. “Over Here: How the GI Bill Transformed the American Dream.”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-humes/nine-words_b_32838.html (Accessed 02/03/2011)

[2] Coutts, Sharona, “Top 500 Recipients of Post-9/11 G.I. Bill Tuition Money”, Propublica: Journalism in the Public Interest http://projects.propublica.org/tables/forprofit-gi-bill (Accessed 02/03/2011). Compiled using data from the Department of Veterans Affairs

[Continuing with the blogpost]

So if you look at the above document (which if it has any major errors, please e-mail me the details so I can correct them) we are making our argument while offering three general courses of action for congress to take action on. Meeting with Congressman Runyan this early on has provided two major things for us:

1) Refining the argument and tailoring it to the realities of the economic and political environment and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives

2) Beginning the process of legislation

On the first point: we learned more about what we can realistic expect to accomplish over the next few months in order to make efficient use of our resources and maximize our probability of success. GI Bill 2.0 was passed in a lame-duck Democratic congress.

Interestingly enough, I learned that the House sub-committees are going to be chaired by freshman Republicans while the standing committees will have the senior Republicans overseeing them. This works to our advantage because anybody that was involved in the hasty passing of GI Bill 2.0 won’t blackball any new provisions that might be introduced to correct 2.0’s flaws.

Congressman Runyan and I reluctantly agreed that going for gold, i.e. full-tuition and living stipend no matter where you attend school is dead-on-arrival in this congress. However, the 1944 GI Bill should be the platonic ideal that we strive for. Keeping them informed on the provisions, meaning, and economic benefits of the 1944 GI Bill contextualizes our case for a much more limited benefit.

The one provision I believe we can get passed before the August 2011 deadline is the “grandfather clause.” As in the above document, the way we are framing the argument is an abrogation of a contract between the veteran and the government. As many of you know, abrogating a contract is the ultimate sin of the business world and is fundamental to how we work as a democracy. I have some well-reasoned speculations on why a grandfather clause was absent from 2.0, and none of them flatter the interest groups who supported this bill. Catch me in a bar and ask me about this and I’ll give you an angry (and intelligent) tirade.

The language we will use for the “grandfather clause” essentially is if you have begun using your GI Bill benefits before August 2011, you would have the OPTION to receive tuition benefits under the old rules until you exhaust your benefits. This would not apply to the housing stipend changes, etc. Many of our students have uprooted themselves and put a down-payment on their education in New York City under the impression that the GI Bill would exist for the duration of their education.

On the second point: myself and Rich Baldassari convened who we could of the JCLEAVE to meet yesterday and had a long and really productive meeting. Our first priority is to build up a presentation and set of materials (handouts) that crunches the numbers and makes our case. Instead of being redundant (and adhering to my original outline) I will just move onto the minutes of the meeting...

2) Initial JCLEAVE meeting minutes [edited and annotated ]

J-CLEAVE 4FEB2010

MEETINGS 1730 EVERY FRIDAY in the Student Government Office 5th Floor Lerner
[If any of you intend to attend our meetings, please be courteous and allow us to conduct our meetings smoothly and keep them productive. We will address any and all of your concerns, clarify points that you may not understand, and answer all questions at the end.]

530pm: Meeting begins

GRANDFATHER CLAUSE IS THE PRIMARY TARGET

[Veterans made a decision to go to school based on academic potential. Reducing benefits in the middle of their education without a “Grandfather Clause” amounts to abrogating a contract
http://www.legion.org/mygibill/93521/legion-wins-fight-gi-bill-changes]

RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL BILL

[as mentioned earlier, this is going to be our guiding principle and a useful piece of information that contextualizes our argument]

CONDUCT DATA COLLECTION AND RESEARCH

[We have the talented Keir Daniels who will be our main go-to guy for data collection. He is currently working on comparing the GI Bill and its affects on the top 50 schools in higher education, as well as the top 50 for-profit schools; comparing veteran enrollment trends in relationship to financial support from the government and the school; as well as some others that escape me at the moment. He is also going to be working on comparing the net GAIN or LOSS in the transition from GI Bill 1.0 to GI Bill 2.0. This is going to broken down to the per-credit gain/loss by state. This way we can figure out which congressional delegations are most affected by the change and allocate our resources towards them. I can tell you already that Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas are going to be big players in this.

Once we have this research we can build the presentation, which I’ll go into in more depth as we get to it.]

FOR PROFIT SCHOOLS
>Collect all financial statements from for-profit schools
>Collect accreditation information on for-profit schools (http://www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation/)

CONSTRUCT GI BILL LEGISLATION AMENDMENTS
>Pricing structure

>Acquire full copies of the “Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010” as well as it will be written in US Code


>Contact writers of the bill

[We need to learn the intricacies of this bill inside and out. Specifically how we come up with $17,500 dollars as the national cap. We know it is the average cost of all schools, but what schools specifically. There is a lot of legislative potential to make a tiered pricing structure as an alternative to a flat cap based on accreditation and/or non-profit/for-profit status. We have some lawyers that can help us draft legislation in conjunction with the legislative directors of supporting congressman in D.C.]

SEA OF GOODWILL PRESENTATION 23 FEB 2010

[This meeting is hosted by Columbia University since Admiral Mullen came to Columbia in April 2010. There are two presentations that day. One by myself about the GI Bill and another about a Joint Commissioning Ceremony by the esteemed Jose Robledo. In attendance are all the major NYC institutions that deal with veterans. Representatives from the offices of Gillibrand, Schumer, Rangel, etc. as well as NY state’s VA office, the Mayor’s VA office, etc. Essentially this will be preaching to the choir, but also building support within the New York community as well giving us a deadline to complete our data crunch and build a presentation which we can later distribute to our allies across the country so they can lobby their congressman from their district offices.]

DOCUMENTARY FILM

[Part of our media blitz will be the construction of two documentary films. One will be a short advocacy piece while the other will tell the story of veterans under the GI bill and their concerns. The exact nature of the films has yet to be determined, but we already have a member collecting footage in anticipation.]

MEETINGS 530 EVERY FRIDAY

TOP 3 PRIORITIES FOR NEXT MEETING:
1. Get Bill – US code to become in law (chapter)- study of for profit schools – gi bill rates for all states
2. Compile Presentation and Hand Out
3. Finalize J-CLEAVE Organization

JCLEAVE REVISED TIMELINE

10FEB11 Power-point
- intro hist

-old gi bill

-2010 gi bill

-private school and whats wrong

-different COA

-what we need from you
- data compilation for NY state
10FEB11 Charts Complete
-how it effects cu**

-ny state schools**

-schools nationally (not mandatory from 19 FEB)
11FEB11 Next Meeting

(Bill presented to committee and distributed for reading and assessment)
19FEB11 Final Presentation Complete
23FEB11 Sea of Good Will Meeting
04MAR11 Hand Outs Completed
xxMAR11 Reach out affected schools

and begin trips to DC and meet with Legislative Directors
10May11 Spin up for summer lobbying session
1JUN11 Arrive DC

[Continuing with the blogpost]
Much more can be written, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time on this post, as I am sure you have if you’ve gotten to this point. Again post your concerns below or e-mail me if you think they should best be kept out of sight. I’ll try and post every Friday or Saturday on the JCLEAVE.