GI Bill Funds Flow To For-Profit Colleges That Fail State Aid Standards

Aaron Glantz, reporter, Center for Investigative Reporting

Robert Muth, law professor and supervising attorney for Veterans Legal Clinic, University of San Diego

Mark Brenner, Apollo Group, University of Phoenix parent company

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Over the past five years, more than $600 million in college assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been spent on California schools so substandard that they have failed to qualify for state financial aid.

As a result, the GI Bill designed to help veterans live the American dream is supporting for-profit companies that spend lavishly on marketing but can leave veterans with worthless degrees and few job prospects, The Center for Investigative Reporting found.

Its not education. I think its just greed, said David Pace, a 20-year Navy veteran who used the GI Bill to obtain a business degree from the University of Phoenixs San Diego campus.

Although taxpayers spent an estimated $50,000 on Paces education, he has the same blue-collar job he landed right after he left the service: running electrical cable for a defense contractor.

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GI Bill Funds Flow To For-Profit Colleges That Fail State Aid Standards