Instead of maintaining a regulation that’s helped keep student-veterans (and their hard-earned benefits) safe from predatory for-profit education sales pitches, Congress instead could repeal these protections … and spend $1.6 billion to do it.

MOAA joined 30 advocacy groups in a May 28 letter to House and Senate leadership urging a “No” vote on ending the so-called “90-10 rule,” which mandates for-profit schools receive no more than 90% of their revenue from federal education assistance.

Before a bipartisan 2023 change to this rule ensuring VA and DoD education benefits counted toward federal limits, student-veterans served as “dollar signs in uniform” for unscrupulous schools seeking to land GI bill benefits with often-unfilled promises.

[READ THE LETTER | TAKE ACTION: Ask Congress to Keep the 90-10 Rule]

The bipartisan rule helps “ensure quality in higher education programs,” the letter states, with the measure serving as “a market viability test to protect taxpayers from artificially propping up a failing college of such low quality that no employer or private-paying student is willing to pay for it.”

Repealing the rule would cost $1.6 billion over 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate. The regulation would be replaced by a “sector-neutral accountability plan,” according to House Education and Workforce Committee Republicans. In a statement, a representative from Veterans Education Success called it a “high-risk, complicated, and untested model.”

Despite the cost and the consequences, the repeal is included in the House budget reconciliation bill, which is now under consideration in the Senate.

That chamber may make significant changes to the legislation in the coming weeks, with a vote likely coming before the July 4 holiday. MOAA members and others can help raise the importance of protecting student-veterans with their lawmakers by sending a prewritten message via our Legislative Action Center.