The GI Bill is supposed to be one of the most valuable benefits a service member earns. For some, it’s a keystone reason to join the military.
For generations, it has helped veterans turn military service into college degrees, professional certifications, skilled trades, and entirely new careers. For many leaving the military, those benefits represent something even more important: a chance to start over without taking on tens of thousands of dollars in student debt.
That makes the GI Bill incredibly valuable to veterans. It also makes veterans incredibly valuable to schools that know how to access that money.
A recent Washington Post investigation found that some vocational schools have collected enormous sums in GI Bill funding while offering programs teaching skills ranging from turf management to artificial-rock construction.
The problem isn’t that veterans want to learn how to grow grass, landscape property, or build things with their hands. Those can be legitimate professions. The problem is what taxpayers and veterans are being charged for the training.
According to the Post’s investigation, schools offering some of these programs have collected around $300 million in GI Bill funding. In some cases, veterans were enrolled in programs carrying price tags that would make many traditional college degrees look inexpensive.
That should concern anyone who has served.
Veterans Aren’t Spending Monopoly Money
There is a dangerous misconception surrounding the GI Bill: If the government is paying the tuition, the price doesn’t really matter. But, it matters tremendously.
Veterans generally receive a finite amount of GI Bill entitlement. Every month spent attending one program can mean one less month available for another degree, certification or training opportunity.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill can currently pay significant tuition costs. For the 2026–2027 academic year, the Department of Veterans Affairs will pay up to $30,908.34 in tuition and mandatory fees for qualifying private institutions and non-college degree programs. Veterans may also qualify for housing and money for books and supplies.
That creates an enormous marketplace built around veterans’ education benefits. Most schools participating in that marketplace provide legitimate education and training. But guaranteed federal money also creates an obvious incentive: Find veterans with unused benefits and convince them to enroll.
The veteran may never physically write a tuition check. The money moves from the federal government directly to the school. That separation can make a $20,000 or $30,000 training program feel very different from handing someone a personal check for the same amount.
But the veteran is still spending something valuable. They are spending their GI Bill.
The Sales Pitch Can Be Powerful
Transitioning service members are particularly attractive customers. Someone leaving the military may be trying to figure out where to live, what career to pursue, how to translate military experience, and how to support a family; all at the same time.
Then someone offers an easy solution. One that an overwhelmed veteran cannot turn down. Come here. Learn this skill. Use your GI Bill. The government covers the tuition. You may receive a housing allowance while attending. And, suddenly an expensive training program doesn’t necessarily feel expensive.
That is exactly why the system needs strong oversight. It is extremely predatory.
Veterans should certainly be responsible for researching programs before enrolling. But expecting every transitioning service member to conduct a forensic investigation into a school’s finances, pricing structure, graduation rates and employment outcomes is unrealistic.
Approval to accept GI Bill benefits also carries weight. A veteran seeing that a program is eligible for VA education benefits could reasonably interpret that eligibility as a meaningful signal that the program has been vetted. Eligibility, however, does not automatically mean the program represents a good financial value. That distinction needs to be much clearer.
This Isn’t a New Warning
Concerns about oversight of GI Bill education programs have existed for years. In 2016, when ITT Technical Institutes’ 130 campuses shut down overnight, it affected countless potential students, current attendees, and alumni. They all lost the credentials and accreditations they had earned, were working on, or were preparing to earn.
Nearly 20% of that school’s population were veterans. They were just left stranded.
The Government Accountability Office warned in 2018 that state agencies responsible for helping VA oversee participating schools faced funding and staffing challenges that strained their ability to conduct school visits and provide adequate oversight.
Seven years earlier, the GAO had already raised concerns about oversight of schools receiving VA education money. In other words, the federal government has known for years that protecting veterans’ education benefits requires more than simply deciding whether a school technically qualifies to receive such benefits. The question should also be whether veterans are receiving reasonable value in return.
If a program costs several times what comparable civilian training costs, someone should be asking why. And when a school receives a significant percentage of its revenue from veterans’ benefits, someone should be looking at its outcomes.
How many veterans finish? Did those graduates find employment in the field? What do those jobs pay? How much GI Bill entitlement did the veteran consume getting there? And could comparable training have been obtained somewhere else for substantially less?
Those aren’t unreasonable questions. They are the minimum questions taxpayers and veterans should expect someone to ask.
The GI Bill Is More Than Tuition
For veterans working in government, defense and the cleared workforce, this issue deserves particular attention.
Education benefits can become an important part of a post-military career strategy. A veteran might use the GI Bill for graduate school, cybersecurity training, technical certifications, intelligence education, project management, aviation, skilled trades, or another credential that helps move a career forward.
Using a large portion of that entitlement on an overpriced program doesn’t simply waste government money. It can eliminate opportunities later, and that matters because military transition isn’t always a straight line. The career someone expects to pursue immediately after leaving active duty may look very different five years later.
A veteran who preserves some education entitlement has options. They can retrain, earn another credential, and they can pivot into another industry. They can also prepare for a federal or cleared position requiring additional education.
Once those months are gone, however, getting them back can be extremely difficult.
Veterans Deserve Better Consumers Protections
There is nothing wrong with the GI Bill paying for unconventional education. In fact, one of the program’s strengths is its flexibility. Not every veteran needs a bachelor’s degree. America needs trade skills. We need mechanics, pilots, truck drivers, HVAC technicians, electricians, emergency medical technicians, cybersecurity professionals, and thousands of other skilled workers.
The VA explicitly allows GI Bill benefits to support many non-college career and trade programs. That flexibility should be protected, but flexibility without sufficient scrutiny creates opportunity for exploitation.
The answer isn’t restricting veterans to traditional universities. It is making sure veterans can see what they are actually buying. Before a veteran commits their GI Bill time and money, they should be able to easily compare a program’s tuition with similar programs, understand how much of their benefit will be consumed, see completion and employment outcomes when available. They should also be able to identify whether graduates are actually earning enough to justify the cost of the training.
Schools receiving substantial amounts of GI Bill money should also expect scrutiny when their prices dramatically exceed comparable civilian training. The GI Bill shouldn’t become a blank check simply because the person using it isn’t the person physically writing it.
You Earned It. Spend It Carefully.
There is another lesson here that veterans should take seriously. We are not 100% without fault. We helped create this situation. We need to reprogram how we think about education, especially post-service.
Stop thinking about the GI Bill as free education. It isn’t. You earned it, and that distinction changes the conversation.
Imagine someone handed you more than $100,000 and told you it could only be spent on your education and professional development. Would you hand $30,000 of it to a school without comparing prices? Or enroll because someone told you the government would cover it? Would you ask what graduates actually earn afterward?
More than likely, you would be a little more skeptical on where that money went.
Veterans should approach their GI Bill with the same mindset as if it were their own money, because it is. It is your time, your blood, your sweat, and your tears.
Before enrolling anywhere, ask a simple question:
If this money were coming directly out of my bank account, would I still think this program was worth the price?
If the answer is no, the fact that the Department of Veterans Affairs is paying the bill shouldn’t suddenly make it yes. The GI Bill was created to give veterans opportunities after military service.
It shouldn’t become an opportunity for someone else to get rich from it.
