Lawmakers explore reduced tuition assistance p1 - GI Bill Benefits - Tuition Assistance for the Military - Military Times EDGE

In what could be the first step toward reducing tuition assistance payments, the House of Representatives is directing the Pentagon to consider reducing tuition assistance benefits.

An amendment to the House version of the defense authorization bill for fiscal 2012 asks what the effect might be if benefits were reduced from 100 percent to 75 percent of tuition for off-duty education and training.

Service members would pay the remaining 25 percent out of pocket, or use their GI Bill benefits to cover the cost. In 2010, the average military student received $1,831 in tuition help. So if that policy change ultimately was approved, it means the average soldier, sailor, airman or Marine would have to absorb $457 a year in tuition costs.

Tuition assistance costs have soared over the past decade, and Carolyn Baker, DoD's chief of continuing education programs, told educators in February that such growth is "unsustainable."

The amendment to HR 1540, the $689 billion defense authorization bill for 2012, was put forward by Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo.

In all, some 350,000 service members used tuition assistance funds to take 1.1 million college courses in 2010 at a cost of $641 million, according to data compiled from the services.

Almost half the total was used by soldiers in the Army and Army National Guard, who received $316 million in tuition assistance benefits. The Air Force and Air National Guard spent $182 million, the Navy spent $92 million, the Marine Corps $36 million and the Coast Guard $14 million.

Tuition assistance costs for the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps grew 181 percent from fiscal 2001 to 2010, Baker told military education and college officials in February.

Troops spent more time taking more courses, she said, but the biggest driver in the increase was cost, not classes. The number of courses supported by tuition assistance grew during that same period by 27 percent, she said.