GI Bill Log
Sat Aug 7, 2021 - from Jon Miller Log
GI Bill through university partnership: There is no block, provided the university “owns’ the program. This would mean that the university recognizes the OSE curriculums a formal part of their degree or certificate program. From the point of view of the SAA and Veteran’s Administration (VA), who administer the GI Bill, they are just seeing University students receive their GI Bill for going to school full-time. In this scenario, everything hinges on how OSE and said university partner and various hurdles associated with creating a new engineering curriculum. The 2 year OSE portion would have to satisfy the ABET accrediting standards not covered in the first two years, which is a rabbit hole I have yet to jump down.
As far as revenue goes, the 2/2 year split seems fair, but it will require the right type of open minded academic leader to sign off on it. The cynical, devil’s advocate position is: if a student enrolls in my college for an engineering degree, but they spend half of it on a farm under someone else’s curriculum, then basically we are admitting that our in-house curriculum isn’t sufficient. Also, if a university is concerned about it’s rankings, then post-graduation jobs/earnings matter to them. If they don’t buy into the OSE vision, we may need to articulate some value proposition related to immediate employment to justify the money.
Agree- block is psychological, and I would add cultural; OSE defies common intuitions about what education is and how to build a career. I agree with the logic of embedding into a 4-year degree program and I would want the OSE program to stand on its own. I think the right program could be sold directly to government as a direct transition option a la Jesse’s original idea to secure a federal contract.
# of Vets in 12 months after development: High-End: 1000 would apply, Low-End, 100. I’m going to start testing the market this week through social media.
Details on GI Bill: Less than 50% of eligible veterans use GI Bill Less than 3% of eligible veterans use the GI Bill for employment (apprenticeship, not education) Every year, approximately 200-250k service members leave the military. 140k are 18-35, without a college degree. I have to check, but I believe the VA benefit’s budget in 2020 was $11B. Most of that is healthcare, but the money IS there for GI Bill. Regarding flexible/fixed funding: I don’t know how appropriations work, however the GI Bill is federal law, and I would imagine they use statistical models to forecast their budget requests to congress.
Finally, the exact pot of money funding veterans at OSE may become apparent after we have a program that we can pitch to different entities: government, universities, private sector, etc. Common to all is our ability to answer the 5 Ws in detail for the proposed 2-year program, existing 6-month apprenticeship, and any other programs in the works. In the meantime, I am keeping all options open: education, apprenticeship, partnership, and stand-alone.
Curriculum Dev: Just getting my feet under me, will send separate e-mail including Paul.
