The GI Bill is one of the most important ways our country says ‘thank you’ to veterans, but now this crucial legislation is under threat. Some schools are putting profits ahead of veterans’ education.

Through the loophole in the law, for-profit schools can rake in an extra $125,000 in your taxpayer dollars every time they enroll a new veteran. So far, they’ve gouged $1.6 billion in veterans’ hard-earned GI Bill benefits. But the top for-profit schools are failing to graduate nearly 70 percent of their students, and they’re leaving thousands with mountains of debt, worthless degrees and few job prospects.

Help IAVA ensure that our veterans are treated as assets to our country, not dollar signs.Share this video about predatory for-profit schools and help us close the loophole to defend the New GI Bill and student veterans. 

Watch the video, and visit http://defendthenewgibill.org to help us defend the New GI Bill.

From: http://www.newgibill.org/defend-the-new-gibill/

Click here for application and contact info:

http://sms.scholarshipamerica.org/veterans-student-loan-relief/application.html

Program Guidelines

Eligibility

The Veterans’ Student Loan Relief Fund is open to veterans of all branches of the United States Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) as well as the Coast Guard, National Guard and Armed Forces Reserves. The fund is intended to provide assistance to veterans who feel they are in financial difficulties as a result of being defrauded or misled by the proprietary school they attended.

To be eligible to apply, individuals must –

Be veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan (or served in the surrounding area and have documented service in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom) for a total of at least 60 days after September 11, 2001. Eligible applicants include veterans who did not meet the 60-day active service period as a result of a service-related injury or condition,
Have attended at the undergraduate level a proprietary (for-profit) two- or four-year college or university, vocational-technical school or training institute in the United States after military service,
Have applied for and accepted all eligible federal, state and institutional need-based grants and used all available military educational benefits (grants from all sources must be disclosed on the application), and
Have incurred educational loans that have not yet been fully repaid.

Awards

If selected as a recipient, the veteran will receive up to $5,000 to repay educational loans.

Application Requirements

Applicants must submit –

Completed and signed application form.
Personal statement regarding educational studies after military service and financial difficulties due to being defrauded or misled by the proprietary school attended.
Documentation of military service and deployment (one or both of the following):
1. DD214
2. United States Armed Forces: copy of official military orders and documentation of service dates in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom after September 11, 2001. (If DD214 does not clearly state dates of service in Iraq or Afghanistan or participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, please supply other documentation such as a signed statement from your commanding officer or VA Administrator, the Basic Individual Report for Marines, or deployment roster.)
Note: If total service days in Afghanistan and/or Iraq is less than 60, provide military medical documentation of service-related injury or condition incurred in Afghanistan or Iraq
Current, complete transcript of grades from proprietary (for-profit) institution attended (may be in the form of an electronic printout provided the document includes school name and student name.)
School´s statement of financial aid for all years attended. (You should be able to get this online or at your school´s financial aid office.)
Statement of military education benefits for all years received (go tohttp://www.gibill.va.gov).
All educational loan promissory notes.
Current statements for all educational loans showing outstanding balance.
2011 IRS Form 1040 with all Schedules and Attachments.
Current credit history report (Equifax, Experian or TransUnion).
Bankruptcy filings, if any.

Applicants will indicate whether their contact information may be shared with the sponsor in order to participate in interviews and research studies. The applicant´s decision to permit or not permit sharing of contact information will not be a factor in the selection process.

The application form and all required documents must be mailed in one envelope by postmark deadline August 11, 2012

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Selection of Recipients

Applicants will be screened based on the following: applicant´s financial assets, level of educational debt, credit difficulties, bankruptcy filings (if any), and the impact of indebtedness on the applicant and his or her family. Other factors, including length of military service, number of deployments, completion of education, and level of employment following degree completion, will also be considered in the screening process.

From the pool of applicants who meet the screening criteria according to the process and factors listed above, recipients will be selected to represent broadly all areas of the United States and United States Territories and all branches of the United States Armed Forces.

Selection of recipients is made by Scholarship Management Services. In no instance does any member of any of the Armed Forces play a part in the selection. All applicants agree to accept the decision as final.

Applicants will be notified by the end of September 2012. Not all applicants to the program will be selected as recipients. Previous applicants may reapply if the program is offered again in the future.

Payment of Awards

Scholarship Management Services processes award payments in one installment. The check will be payable to the loan servicing agency for the individual´s account and mailed to the recipient´s home address in October 2012.

The payment may result in taxable income to the recipient. Recipients should consult a tax professional with any questions.

Obligations

Recipients will be required to authorize release of personal statement, demographic information and contact information to the sponsor. Any use of such information for consumer awareness and public policy purposes will only be upon authorization by the recipient.

Recipients will be required to supply Scholarship Management Services with further information if requested in regard to the use of the award for loan repayment and to notify Scholarship Management Services of any change of address or other relevant contact Information.

Revisions

The Veterans’ Student Loan Relief Fund reserves the right to review the conditions and procedures of this program and to make changes at any time including termination of the program.

Postmark Deadline: August 11, 2012

http://sms.scholarshipamerica.org/veterans-student-loan-relief/

By JAMES DAO

DETROIT — Malcolm Byrd got out of the Marine Corps in 2003 and found work, first in a General Motors factory and then with a nonprofit group. But four months ago, he lost his job because of government budget cuts and has been job hunting since.

Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, during a job fair held in Detroit last week.

Telling potential employers that he was a Marine supply clerk who managed millions of dollars in Kevlar helmets and folding cots does not seem to have helped him find the management job he is seeking.

“I could run a warehouse, but they don’t put that on your DD-214,” said Mr. Byrd, 38, referring to the official document troops receive upon leaving service. “You do get skills in the military, but people don’t seem to understand that.”

As government and veterans groups work to bring down the high unemployment rate for recent veterans, they are finding a major problem in translating the work of war to peacetime jobs.

In a widely cited recent study of veteran hiring, researchers from the Center for a New American Security, a research organization based in Washington, found that the No. 1 obstacle to hiring veterans was matching military skills with civilian work.

“Civilian employers do not always realize that military-specific jobs — such as machine gunner, tank driver or helicopter crew chief — have some components that are directly comparable to civilian environments,” said the report, which was based on interviews with officials from 69 companies.

With that in mind, the Department of Veterans Affairs brought scores of job counselors to Detroit last week for its largest hiring fair of the year, where more than 8,000 veterans turned up looking for work. The department plans to hold at least nine more such fairs this year.

Among their tasks was building résumés for grenadiers, infantry squad leaders and logistics officers that might make sense to private companies and government agencies. Veterans could also get interview coaching and be directed to relevant jobs offered by 240 employers who sent recruiters to the fair.

By the end of the three-day event, which overlapped with an annual conference on veteran-owned small businesses, more than 1,300 jobs were offered to veterans, the department said.

In an interview, the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, said most veterans left service with marketable skills. “But unless we can translate that into understandable business language, it’s hard for the employer to get a full appreciation for the skills and knowledge the veteran will bring,” he said.

Those skills can indeed be hard to see. A machine gunner, for instance, may seem adept only at dismantling, cleaning and firing a weapon. But military life is also likely to have taught him to be adaptable, disciplined, hard working and a team player. Many veterans will have also managed other service members, responsible for not just planning their days, but also safeguarding their lives.

Mr. Shinseki said the department picked Detroit for its event, where it also assisted veterans in signing up for V.A. benefits and health care, because there were an estimated 94,000 unemployed veterans within a 600-mile radius of the city.

The unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has remained above the civilian rate for several years, standing at 12.7 percent in May, compared with 7.7 percent among nonveterans.

The problem is particularly great among younger veterans ages 18 to 24, whose unemployment rate was 23.5 percent in May, 10 percentage points higher than their nonveteran peers.

One reason for the particularly high rate is that many younger veterans do not have college degrees at a time when the already tight job market is demanding them more than ever. Some employers have also expressed concerns that veterans will be hampered by psychological problems like post-traumatic stress disorder, though experts say such concerns are unwarranted.

On the flip side, the Center for a New American Security study found that most companies reported wanting to hire veterans because they are often strong leaders and work well within a structured work setting, among other reasons.

But Margaret C. Harrell, a senior fellow at the center and a co-author of the report, said veterans often struggled to explain their skills to employers. They are also often hurt by licensing requirements imposed by states on certain professions.

Medics and hospital corpsmen, for instance, may have to receive additional training to become nurses or emergency medical technicians, even if they already have extensive experience handling battlefield injuries. “People are less concerned when we talk about giving commercial truck driving jobs to military truck drivers,” Ms. Harrell said. “But it’s a bit harder to know how military medical training translates into the civilian world.”

Glenn McCartan, a former Marine Corps company commander who left active-duty service in 2009, said another frustration felt by many of his peers was being placed in jobs with less responsibility than they were used to.

That may be because they were given latitude in the military, said Mr. McCartan, who worked at a government agency before going to graduate school. But it also may be a result of nonmilitary bosses not understanding military work and thus being wary of giving veterans leadership positions. “A lot of veterans are hungry,” said Mr. McCartan, a major in the Marine Corps Reserve. “They want to be productive, but they are held back.”

Mr. Byrd said he has tried pitching his experience with military logistics to companies like Kmart and Lowe’s, to no avail.

“I’m not hoping for the job of my dreams,” he said. “I just want to be gainfully employed.”

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/us/confronting-the-significant-hurdles-in-matching-recent-veterans-with-civilian-jobs.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

NYCEDA

Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling and Job Placement

Defend the New GI Bill