The Veteran Supported Education Service Treatment Manual: VetSEd

classes and degrees are offered by a variety of schools, including non-profit and private
2-year and four year school as well as proprietary institutions. Therefore, the types of
support services available to Veteran students may vary considerably. Lastly, as a peer
VetSEd provider, you should be aware that while some schools appear to offer online and
distance learning classes or degrees, they are actually ―degree‖ or ―diploma mills.‖
Degree and diploma mills are organizations that award academic degrees or diplomas
with little to no academic study or official recognition by an academic accrediting body.
These schools will not qualify for GI Bill funding. The United States Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) has warned U.S. consumers about degree and diploma mills. The
FTC‘s warning and related advice can be found at
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt149.shtm. Also like the note above
for proprietary schools, on-line schools may also have undesirable completion rates (the
rate of students or Veterans who graduate with a degree) or poor job placement rates for
school graduates. Be sure to check on the reputation of any on-line school the Veteran
may be considering.
Other Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) and Non-College Degrees (NCD). Within
the IHL category there are technical, vocational and business schools that are specifically
designed for certain types of degrees or ―trades‖. These technical schools will provide
training for a specific career, trade or profession to include: automotive technician,
computer technician, hairstylist, medical assistant, truck driver, and many other fields.
NCD refers to a course or program of education or any other institutional
vocational/educational training which does not lead to a standard college degree.
iii.
Using “Recon” Methods
Recon, or reconnaissance, is a military term with which most Veterans are familiar. It
involves exploring beyond the area that is known or occupied to gain additional
information about the surrounding environment. As a peer VetSEd provider, it is
important to present Veterans with different recon methods they can use to gain
information about particular schools and training programs. The more Veterans know
about a particular school or training program, the better they will be able to determine if
it fits with the personal criteria they identified in Worksheet #4: My Personal Criteria for
Schools/Training Programs Checklist. Depending on the number of schools a Veteran is
interested in researching, it may be useful for the Veteran to develop a folder for each
school s/he is researching. In the folder, the Veteran can include relevant information
from the colleges‘ Web site, as well as other information retrieved from use of additional
recon methods.
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