Click here for an article from the July 22nd Minneapolis/St. Paul Star-Tribune

The My CAA program, which allows spouses to attend school tuition free, has not been without it’s difficulties as of late. It suffered an administrative shut-down earlier in the year that left many spouses attending school in a bit of a bind. It was re-worked to meet the demand, so it seemed, and was unveiled to be returning to the fray stronger than ever. That was until earlier this summer when another shut-off occurred. This particular shut-off was especially devastating, since this happened to occur right before the start of the academic year in September when everyone is preparing to attend schools.

Now, the My CAA program has returned again, but this time with serious caps to the payout. According to the Star-Tribune article above, it no longer pays $6000 in payment for classes, it now pays only $4000. Additionally, its use is now limited to the lowest enlisted ranks (E1-E5) and junior-grade officers only.

So why the big changes? Turns out that much like the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the My CAA program was not aware of the sheer volume of participants who would be looking to take advantage of it. The surge in Afghanistan and the slower than expected exit from Iraq mean that more military personnel are deployed overseas and the abundance of education options available currently means that more spouses at home are looking to bide their time away from loved ones by enhancing their education. The My CAA program is a terrific option.

However, to start a program and stop is just not good business. While it’s easy to see that the program is struggling, so was the Post 9/11 GI Bill. Sure–funds were held up for awhile, customer service call time took over an hour and changes were implemented on the fly to meet demand. The Post 9/11 GI Bill program was in a funk for a long time and arguably still is. But the VA to their credit never halted the program altogether after committing to unrolling it on 1 August 2009. Once that date came, people were helped and those who were eligible were never turned away or refused. They may have taken extremely long to be processed and money amounts may have at times been incorrect, but overall the VA truly did everything they could with the resources they were given. Hiccups aside, they should be commended for keeping the program going even when things got impossibly tough (as an college enrollment counselor for military students, I could tell it was at that point).

But to stop a program completely to re-vamp it, administratively or otherwise, is especially tough on students who have a time line to complete their class payments and change eligibility without informing the users is a tough pill to swallow. The changes in eligibility not only included the ranks of the spouses serving and the dollar amount available, but also the types of programs they can use their My CAA money on. It now can only be used on professional certificates, continuing education courses or associates degrees, and not a bachelor’s degree or graduate-level classes.

And yet, who can we blame? The program was under-funded and misspent from the get-go. But this does not answer for the thousands of military spouses who served their country in the absence of their loved ones who are looking to use their benefits to improve their lives but now cannot because of the restructuring of the program. Sadly, they are the ones who are left on the outside looking in. I sincerely hope that through financial aid, other military grants and scholarships or a transfer in GI Bill benefits from their spouses, they are able to pay for their educational endeavors.