Before you consider a school or degree, you need to decide which career path to pursue. Once you’ve done that, you can choose a degree and finally a school.
How to Choose a degree After the Military
Your degree plan should qualify you for the career you choose. Too often people will choose a degree plan that sounds like it would be fun—like Art History or Philosophy—without considering what their next steps will be. Studying those types of subjects may indeed be fun, but your career choices may be limited. Sadly, many realize the limitations of their chosen degree too late, and must go back to school to get a degree that gives them more career choices. If they knew what they wanted to do in the first place, they could have avoided needing to get another degree (at the same level). Not only have they wasted a considerable amount of time, but also their GI Bill benefits. In most of these cases, they end up paying for their second degree out of pocket.
How to Choose a school after the military
You have identified two of the three choices you need to make after the military: career and degree. The only one left is choosing a school that offers the degree you need.
Many veterans choose to go to school online because of the flexibility it provides. If that is the route you want to go, look for a brick and mortar school with a long history, legacy and reputation, that also offers your degree online. Some online schools are only virtual and lack the infrastructure and support veterans need. When choosing a school ask:
- What is the veteran population?
- What is the veteran retention rate?
- Does the school have a veteran support group?
Getting the answers to these three questions will give you a good idea if the school is veteran-friendly or not. Many schools have veterans centers that can help cut through the red tape of enrolling in classes and even give veterans enrollment priority. This can be important if you need to take classes that normally fill up quickly.
There are also a couple of “tools” that can help you choose a school: College Navigator and GI Bill Comparison Tool. Each is self-explanatory and can help you make a choice when comparing schools to determine which school is right for you.
Accreditation in your post-military school
Schools are usually either part of a national or regional accreditation program. By choosing your career first, you will know which accreditation is required by your career field. In many career fields, a regional accreditation is more desirable than a national one—just the opposite of what you think it would be.
And just because a school has the correct accreditation, not all of their degree plans will necessarily carry that same accreditation. You have to ask the question when searching schools to be sure both your degree and school carry the accreditation you need for your career field.
If you do these three things in the correct order—career, degree and school—you will have a better handle on your career path and you will minimize both time and money that can be wasted along the way. It only takes a little prior planning to get it right.
