Principles of Excellence

In 2012, President Obama issued an Executive Order directing his administration to design a set of principles that protect veterans and service members who receive federal education benefits. To help reduce aggressive and deceptive recruiting practices, the order instructs the secretaries of Education (ED), Defense (DOD), and Veterans Affairs (VA) to develop "Principles of Excellence to strengthen oversight, enforcement, and accountability" within the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Tuition Assistance Program. The government developed tools to give students more information and increase federal oversight of educational institutions that serve military students who receive federal financial aid. A summary of these tools is below.

Complaint System

This Executive Order also led to the creation of the VA GI Bill Feedback System and the DoD Postsecondary Education Complaint System. Together these systems create an online infrastructure that collects feedback from service members, veterans, and their family members who are using federal benefits to pay for their educations and are dissatisfied with some aspect of the experience.

Comparison Tool

In 2015, the VA released a new version of the GI Bill Comparison Tool, an information vehicle for Post-9/11 GI Bill recipients who are navigating their college options. First released in 2014, the tool now includes more veteran-specific data points for each higher education institution, including retention and graduation rates for Post-9/11 GI Bill recipients attending full- and part-time. The tool also now lists "Caution Flags" for schools on various probations.