Sherry Reynolds Erickson-Freelance Reporter on the Shutdown and Running of MyCAA.
This is Julia and I am including a great article written about the shutdown of the MyCaa program. It details the program and the flawed system of implementing and running the program.
Last year the Department of Defense approved a new program aimed at offering tuition assistance to military spouses looking to complete college classes and specialized training. Believing this effort would lead to better employment options for spouses who constantly relocate, Military One Source, a multi-purpose location providing a wide array of assistance to the military and their families, became host to the Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts, known as MyCAA. Once completing the application process which includes DOD screening, military spouses were approved for up to $6000 in tuition assistance.
In January 2010, the program saw a spike in applications and by February the DOD felt the need to evaluate the situation as the MyCAA program approval rate went far beyond the funds available to support the program. In mid-February, the DOD abruptly stopped providing tuition assistance leaving many spouses in financial trouble with no means to pay for enrolled classes. Frustrated by the lack of useful information provided by the MyCAA resource phone line, and clearly not understanding why more specific detail or notice had been given, Sherry Erickson, a US Navy military spouse of 20 years and MyCAA recipient since July 2009, started looking into the reasoning behind the sudden stop the MyCAA program implemented.
On Friday, February 26th Erickson spoke with a DOD representative connected to the MyCAA program, Pat Shanaghan. While talking by phone, Shanaghan unequivocally told her that the MyCAA program is an unguaranteed benefit program which never promised to provide funds past what is approved through the financial assistance voucher process, regardless of spouses being told a total of $6000 is allocated per approved spouse. The figures, which were tracked by online accounts at Military One Source and stated how much money a spouse could use of the approved $6000, was basically fictitious – not a guarantee of funds to use but a guide to what might be a spouse’s fund if a per term financial assistance voucher was completed which would be limited to current class enrollments costing as much as $2000 per college class.
At the time of the shutdown, Erickson successfully used about $3000 of her supposed $6000 fund, a total of six college classes offered at Columbia College. Although the following is still unclear due to the DOD’s ambiguous responses to questioning, the tuition assistance funds were essentially pooled and taken from a big pot, instead of being specifically allocated to each spouse’s online account. When that pot grew close to emptying, the plug was pulled on the program, without notification, regardless of the funds balance.
The DOD seems to have failed to accurately anticipate the level of interest in this program and grossly underestimated the required funding. With the January spike in DOD approvals of spouse program applications officials appeared to have approved too many applications for funds that were not available and instead of turning away new applicants due to insufficient funds, they shut down the program for review purposes.
Erickson believes this shutdown is the result of poor oversight, saying
“The pool of funds should have been better accounted for when considering what funding was already approved to a large number of spouses. I was under the impression that the MyCAA program would stop taking applications at a certain point in order to maintain service to those already promised funds. “
Erickson went on to say, “For my account, I looked at this transaction as binding – I was approved for $6000, I counted on that $6000 and expected to use it fully. A person cannot walk away from a student loan of $6000 and say – oh sorry I have no more money – so MyCAA should not be allowed to do the same.”
When asked if the program would be brought back online, Shanaghan alluded that it would, but would probably be changed as a result of the review.
Should anyone interested in this topic wish to find out more, Pat Shanaghan can be reached at 901-874-6643. In addition, more information can be found at the Facebook community group Take Action Against MyCaa Shutdown.
Lauren and Julia are Army spouses. Julia was able to apply for and use the MyCAA grant, and Lauren was too late to sign up. We have done several interviews on television, and in the newspapers. Many Americans wrote very negative responses to our interviews. Many were about how military spouses did not deserve this program. The comments that were left angered us, and this blog is our response to their comments, and what the interviews left out of the story.
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