Amid a historical shortage of new recruits, the U.S. Army is weighing options to curtail two of its most popular education benefit programs, a decision that could affect more than 100,000 student soldiers who rely on those funds.
The benefits that might face the chopping block are Tuition Assistance and Credentialing Assistance programs. Widely popular among the rank-and-file, the two programs are among the service’s premier tools to attract new recruits and keep experienced soldiers from leaving.
Through the Tuition Assistance program, the Army will pay a soldier’s college tuition up to $250 per semester hour of credit, with a cap of $4,500 per year. The program, which serves 101,000 soldiers per year on average, has cost the Army an average of $218 million each year since it was launched in 1999.
The Army Credentialing Assistance program, established in January 2020, provides up to $4,000 per year to help a soldier earn civilian credentials such as a commercial truck driver’s license or an IT technician certificate. The money can be used to cover classroom learning, books, study guides, and any test fees or related expenses.
Although the Army has historically seen sponsoring its members’ education as a way to prepare them for successful transition into civilian workforce, it is now seeking to reduce those benefits in the face of persistent recruitment and retention problems.
“We know our soldiers value certifications that they can then use when they leave the Army,” said Ms. Wormuth, the Army’s top civilian officer. “The challenge we have is we didn’t frankly really put any guardrails around the program to help us scope it.”
Earlier this month, word broke out that the Army is looking to cut the Credentialing Assistance benefits from $4,000 per year to $1,000 per year, but it’s unclear what specific changes would be made to the Tuition Assistance program.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Ms. Wormuth said that Army officials might be placing a limit on the number of credentials a soldier can pursue each year or over the course of one’s career in the Army.
“What we are looking at is rather than having soldiers be able to pursue an unlimited number of credentials every year in perpetuity, we may look at saying that soldiers could do one certification a year,” Ms. Wormuth told the members of Congress. “Maybe have sort of a cap on the number of certifications they can get over the duration of their time in the Army—really just to try to manage the costs of the program a little bit better.”
“That’s sort of how we’re thinking right now,” she said. “And those kinds of guardrails are very similar to what our sister services have done in the Air Force and the Navy.”
Should any change be made, they won’t affect the post-9/11 GI Bill, which is not operated by the U.S. Department of Defense, but the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The move comes as the Army failed to meet its recruiting goals for two consecutive years since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, the service reported coming up 10,000 soldiers short of the target of having 65,000 new members to make up the gaps in its ranks.
In 2022, it missed the goal by 15,000 troops, marking a 25 percent miss from the 60,000 new soldiers it sought to bring in.
“We’re working around the clock to overcome our recruiting challenges,” Ms. Wormuth said Wednesday, adding that the Army’s latest efforts have made “solid” progress by attracting “a lot of interest” from potential enlistees, including high school and college students.
“We are doing better this year,” she told the lawmakers.
