Opinion: When it Comes to Tuition Assistance, the Marine Corps Missed the Target

This letter to the editor is in response to the a Patch piece, , last week.

The Marine Corps got this one wrong!

Listed here are the top 10 reasons the Corps missed the target in regards to TA funding:

10. My recruiter promised me that the Marine Corps offered 75 – 100 percent tuition assistance, he promised me a lot of things; TA was the only truth though. Now, with the new policy, I guess he lied about everything.

9. The Air Force, Army, and Navy are still authorized $3500 per fiscal year, yet the Marine Corps is cut to $875 per fiscal year, the Marine Corps can get a lot done with the “do more with less” attitude, but this is not one of them.

8. The Marine Corps is America’s force in readiness, ready to deploy in any clime or place and in fact the Corps is deployed right now to many austere locations around the world. Deployed and otherwise engaged Marines cannot sit in a physical class room, but they can get on-line to take college level classes. The average cost per semester hour for on-line courses is $250, yet the Department of Defense capped the rate per semester at $175. Really?

7. Congress approved the new awesome Post 911 GI Bill that provides the ability to transfer portions of the GI Bill benefits to military dependents; in order to do this the military member must in most cases have an additional four years on his or her contract at the time of registering to transfer these benefits. Many military members have done this and extended their contracts past their normal End of Service so their dependents could take advantage of this educational opportunity under the guise that the members would be able to use their TA funding to complete their own education. The new policy requires Marines to take back the educational benefits transferred to dependents in order to complete their own education because TA will no longer cover the Marine. One huge benefit provided to dependents that have sacrificed just as much as military members rescinded by the new policy.

6. The so called, and I am sure overpaid “TA Analysts” must have used either some baseless facts or some sort of new math to come up with their TA assumptions. We all know what happens when you assume something. They state, “Most TA users take an average of four to five semester hours per year." Well guess what, I do not know of any class one can take to earn five semester hours. Most classes are worth three semester hours and some that require a lab are worth four. By either decreasing the five semester hours of available TA for the Marine Corps to four or increasing it by one to six would have made a lot more sense. By limiting it to five it just shows how much thought did not go into your “analysis”.

5. The Marine Corps values are Honor, Courage, and Commitment; I guess that only goes one way.

4. As a leader in America’s premier fighting force it is getting increasingly difficult to explain to young Marines why they are not taken care of like members of our sister services. All military members make great sacrifices and I respect all branches for what they bring to the fight, but the fact remains that when s--- hits the fan America sends in the Marines. The best trained and equipped, most disciplined, most motivated, and now LEAST educated force in the world.

3. Commandant’s Planning Guidance priority #2: We will rebalance our Corps, posture it for the future and aggressively experiment with and implement new capabilities and organizations. The principal here is to maintain the Corps’ key leadership, cutting the leadership’s educational benefits is a slap in the face to this principal. We educate ourselves to make us better leaders and apply that education to the Corps. Focusing TA towards those first term Marines, albeit one course a year, will not entice civilians to enlist nor will it allow current Marines to seek further education. Key leadership will be weaker in the future because of it.

2. Commandant’s Planning Guidance priority #3: We will better educate and train our Marines to succeed in distributed operations and increasingly complex environments. The Commandant states, “We will invest more in the education of our NCOs and junior officers, as they have assumed vastly greater responsibilities in both combat and garrison. We will markedly increase opportunities for Marines to attend resident Professional Military Education (PME), civilian fellowships, and advanced education programs”. I guess one out of three isn’t too bad.

1. Commandant’s Planning Guidance priority #1: We will keep faith with our Marines, our Sailors and our families. The Commandant states, “Our approach to caring for Marines, families and relatives of our fallen Marines is based on our unwavering loyalty; this will not change”. I truly believe that this is the Commandant’s number one priority, but I don’t think the TA policy makers read his guidance, if they had; they may have put a little more thought into it. The Commandant further states, “We will make concerted efforts at attracting, mentoring and retaining the most talented men and women who bring a diversity of background, culture and skill in service to our Nation. Lastly, we will conduct a thorough “bottom up” assessment of our Transition Assistance Program to ensure it is providing the right educational and occupational assistance to Marines leaving our active duty ranks, thus fulfilling our commitment to return better citizens back to communities across our Nation.” In today’s economy, Marines need to leave our ranks educated and trained to enter the civilian job market. Waiting to complete degrees after leaving the Corps is not a very good option especially for those Marines that have a family to support. If we want to fulfill the commitment to return better citizens back to communities across the Nation lets reincorporate TA for Marines to the level that is afforded other military services, that is how we will keep faith with our Marines and our families.

Rhonda Bell is the manager of two veterinary hospitals in Orange County and the spouse of an active duty Marine for the past 17 yrs. 

If you have an opinion on a community or military issue, please send it to daniel.woolfolk@patch.com.