The following is an Op Ed and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of WOWO News and staff.
By Bob “Shoebob” Carey, U.S. Navy Capt. (Ret.)
After years under a regulatory framework that sought to dictate how and where America’s veterans could use their earned education benefits, servicemembers may finally be getting relief if a new bill is passed.
Senator Jim Banks (R-IN), himself a combat veteran, recently introduced legislation to repeal one of the U.S. Department of Education’s most heinous regulations and restore veteran student choice.
Senator Banks’ PARITY Act would permanently repeal the Department of Education’s 90/10 Rule, a punitive double-standard that requires military and veteran students to use their earned education benefits at brand-name, brick-and-mortar schools.
A new report by the National Defense Committee reaffirms the imperative to permanently repeal this discriminatory regulation. Built on dubious policy foundations and applied only to career colleges, the rule is a flawed indicator of programmatic performance. It punishes schools that serve veteran, low-income, and non-traditional students.
Developed under the Obama administration and augmented by the Biden Department of Education, the 90/10 Rule was pitched to the public as a mechanism to hold colleges more accountable for student outcomes. In truth, it was never about protecting students; it was designed as a hammer to drive career-education schools into the ground and reinforce the higher ed status quo.
Policymakers applied the rule only to proprietary institutions, omitting public, private, and state-run schools—which are often the worst offenders. One study found that 80 percent of public two-year colleges and 40 percent of public four-year colleges would run afoul of the 90/10 Rule, if it were applied uniformly across all types of post-secondary institutions. But, it applies only to career-education institutions, which enroll fewer than 10 percent of U.S. students.
The rule also requires that military members’ and veterans’ GI Bill benefits be counted as federal aid, rather than as earned compensation for their service. As a result, schools can’t count GI Bill benefits towards the 10 percent of revenue that must come from non-federal aid sources. This condition prevents many veterans from using their benefit packages at schools of their choosing.
The rule’s constraints are tantamount to the government telling a military retiree: “Here’s your monthly retirement pension check. By the way, you cannot use this money to buy groceries at Kroger—you can only use it at the military commissary.” That’s unfair and just plain wrong.
The 90/10 Rule was always discriminatory. Now, it is also obsolete.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Congress passed and President Trump signed into law last year, created new outcome-based performance metrics to hold schools accountable for preparing students. Unlike the previous patchwork rulebook, the law’s guardrails apply to all institutions, not just some, providing confidence that a degree is worth the sheepskin it’s printed on.
With the new accountability measures in place—which include an “earnings premium” test that applies to all colleges and universities—the 90/10 Rule is now irrelevant. All schools must prove their programs’ worth, whether they are public, private, or proprietary. There is no need for an additional subset for career-education schools.
This author—who represented military and veteran students on two negotiated rulemaking committees (the groups tasked with developing education regulations)—applauds Senator Banks for his leadership to restore value and dignity to veterans’ earned benefits. It’s why the National Defense Committee led a coalition of military and veterans service organizations calling on members of Congress to support the bill.
Senator Banks’ legislation will finally level the playing field and restore control to students and their families. I hope and expect that the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee, on which Senator Banks serves, will quickly advance this bill and that Congress will move it to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law.
Bob Carey is executive director of National Defense Committee, a retired U.S. Navy captain, former national security adviser to two U.S. senators, and a former Senior Executive Service employee of both the departments of Defense and Energy.
