Colleges and Universities Have a Resource for Serving Military Students

As the U.S. prepares for a possible war with Iraq, large numbers of active duty military personnel and reservists are being called to duty. This increased deployment has made delivering higher education to students in the military more difficult--and more critical--than ever.

"Institutions of higher education have been presented with a special set of challenges as more and more student reservists are called to active duty," said NASFAA President Dallas Martin. "In light of this increased military deployment, the question of how best to deliver educational services to those in the military is more relevant than ever."

That's where Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) come in. SOC is a consortium of more than 1,550 colleges and universities dedicated to making sure that this highly mobile group gets the opportunity to get their college degree.

SOC was created in 1972, and is cosponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), in cooperation with 13 other educational associations, the Military Services, the National Guard, and the Coast Guard. SOC is funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) through a contract with AASCU. The contract is managed for DoD by the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES).

SOC member institutions include colleges and universities, community colleges, and technical institutes. Military students in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Army National Guard may enroll in associate, bachelor, and graduate-level degree programs on school campuses, military installations, and armories.

Classes are offered both in the United States and overseas, with programs that employ distance learning tools - such as the Internet, correspondence, or video - to those in isolated locations.

According to the SOC Web site, member institutions "benefit from the enrollment of mature, highly-motivated adult students who are making use of tuition assistance or Montgomery G.I. Bill benefits to pay their education costs."

Information from the SOC Web site is featured on NASFAA's Reserve/Guard Call-Up Financial Aid Page.

"Becoming an SOC institution is one of the best ways to support educational opportunity for servicemembers who wish to continue their education as they serve their country," Martin noted.

In order to join SOC, institutional applicants must:

• Be listed in the Higher Education Directory;
• Be a degree-granting institution that is accredited by an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the Commission on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA);
• Meet appropriate provisions of DoD Directive 1322.8, Voluntary Education Programs for Military Personnel, and appropriate Service regulations when providing educational services on military installations;
• Be approved for educational benefits by its Veterans Administration State Approving Agency;
• Agree to submit data for the SOC Guide; and
• Not be identified in the Guaranteed Student Loan Data Book as having excessive student loan default rates.

SOC institutional membership is for two-year periods, and each member has a listing in the biannually published SOC Guide. Applications for institutional membership can be accessed on-line at http://www.soc.aascu.org/socgen/MembApp.html.

By Elizabeth B. Guerard
NASFAA Assistant Director of Communications

Posted March 24, 2003 on www.NASFAA.org, the Web Site of the
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).
Copyright 2003. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited
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