Marine Warns Major Veterans Bill ‘Will Cause Significant Harm,’ Reverse GI Efforts

A Marine Corps veteran and other advocates are warning that sections contained within major proposed legislation “will cause significant harm” to veterans, students, survivors and families.

The criticism is tied to the comprehensive yet somewhat controversial Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (TCAVA) being deliberated in Congress, which has faced pushback correlated with budgeting, benefits, and purported negative repercussions on military service members with conditions including tinnitus and sleep apnea. The TCAVA introduced last week includes more than 60 veterans’ bills, such as the Major Richard Star Act, the Love Lives On Act, caregiver reforms, VA modernization initiatives and combat-injured veteran expansions.

“This is the wrong moment to weaken the GI Bill,” Marine veteran William Hubbard said. “Veterans earned these benefits in uniform for themselves and their families. Congress should be strengthening quality safeguards and restoring benefits to veterans who were cheated—not opening new doors for predatory programs.”

New concerns, as explained in a letter addressed to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. House and Senate Committees on Veterans Affairs and shared with Military.com, urge caution based on proposals that supporters believe could weaken core protections for veterans while exposing billions of taxpayer dollars to greater risk.

One gripe has to do with benefits associated with online education and trade careers; the other scrutinizes monthly housing allowance increases.

Hubbard, who enlisted in 2006 and was recently promoted after hitting 20 years of service, also serves as vice president for Veterans & Military Policy at Veterans Education Success—a bipartisan nonprofit that aims to advance higher education opportunities for military-connected students while protecting the post-9/11 GI Bill from predatory practices and abuse.

He told Military.com that the GI Bill was intended as a vehicle to help improve veterans’ lives, arguing that legislation as currently written does the opposite and will have nefarious effects in the long run.

“It’s our focus to make sure that veterans and their family members and survivors are getting the most out of the benefits they’ve earned,” Hubbard told Military.com. “That could be Title IV U.S. Department of Education money, such as Pell grants or Pell loans, as well as GI Bill programs that are out there.

“We’re focused on making sure that coalition partners and other organizations that we work with, who rely on our expertise in higher education, have as much information as they can at their fingertips. Some of these provisions are very much in the weeds, so they count on us to bring our expertise.”

Online Trade Course Critique

The two-page letter sent to lawmakers specifically urges Congress to strip the following two higher education provisions: Sections 201(b) and 203.

Section 201(b) would create a new pathway to Title 38 education benefits for unaccredited, fully online education for trades careers. Hubbard and advocates said it “should raise serious concerns” due to how trade careers require hands-on training. They also reject proponents’ arguments defending the hybrid (online and in-person) support of such educational programming, citing how such programs are already permissible under existing authority in 38 U.S.C. § 3676.

“The practical effect of Section 201(b) would expand eligibility beyond the existing authority and create a higher-risk pathway for online programs in sectors with a long history of aggressive recruiting, weak outcomes, and abuse of federal education benefits,” the letter states.

Hubbard said that since current law already allows hybrid trades training, the issue at hand is online trades training.

“I think anybody who’s ever been in the trades knows that’s a very hands-on program and not something that can be learned through PowerPoint,” he told Military.com.

The critique cites a 2023 Forbes report showing that online education, particularly for military-connected students, is an underperforming mode of delivery compared to in-person learning.

It also references a 2023 study published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, which states that “exclusively online students with military service were 11.4 percentage points less likely to earn their bachelor’s degree compared to peers with military service not enrolled in exclusively online programs.”

“Despite the flexibility that online learning offers in a lot of cases, it’s just not a format that’s best suited for folks in the military,” Hubbard added. “I think the numbers in this case bear that out.

“So, when it’s the only option, certainly that’s understandable. But the reality is, spending time on a degree that is very flexible but ultimately doesn’t lead to a degree or certificate is just a waste of time.”

Monthly Housing Allowance ‘Red Flags’

Section 203 “should also raise red flags,” according to the letter.

Hubbard and others oppose it, as it would increase the monthly housing allowance (MHA) for fully online students to 100% of the national MHA average. They claim it would provide for-profit college chains “with a recruiting lever they have long sought: more housing money for veterans to attend low-quality, online college chains and leave flagship public universities in low-rent states.”

The letter goes on to call such a change “nonsensical” due to translating to roughly half of online students receiving too little housing allowance. The other half, meanwhile, would receive more than their locality would otherwise justify, “creating a multibillion-dollar cost without solving the underlying problem.”

“The reality is, to do it year-round would cost something in the order of $12 to $15 billion,” Hubbard said. “So, they scaled that back a little bit to cover the summer only, but by doing 100% of the national average, the math doesn’t work out. About half of the people will get too much, which is then a waste, and then about half of the people won’t get enough, so we’re really not even solving the problem.

“The means to spend several billion dollars to not solve a problem to us doesn’t make sense.”

Advocates Want Congress to Add This to the Legislation

In addition to wanting the two aforementioned sections stripped from current bill language, Hubbard said Congress should include the Student Veteran Benefit Restoration Act.

That legislation, introduced in 2025, restores GI Bill benefits to veterans who were either defrauded, or were unable to finish their education due to predatory or illegal actions by educational institutions.

“This is a very bipartisan bill that we’ve worked on for at least three years,” Hubbard said. “At this point, it’s gotten a lot of interest in both chambers, and all the major veteran service organizations have come out in favor of the bill.

“The fact that it wasn’t included in this package, we think [it’s] a big disservice to veterans who are defrauded and are just simply looking for a second chance to go to college.”

Asked how he and others urging Congress to strip Sections 201(b) and 203 from the bills would feel if they ultimately made the final version, Hubbard said the goal is “to get this package in a place where we can actually support it.” There is some leeway on that front.

“For example, if those two provisions come out and the restoration bill goes in, that’s something that we could get behind,” Hubbard said. “But if that doesn’t happen, that would be a hard red line for us and we just couldn’t support it.

“I think if they do end up in the final version, if it gets past Congress, then we’re going to have to be on top of our game because, inevitably, veterans will continue to come to us who are defrauded or found themselves in low-quality programs, as we’ve seen over the years.”

The letter was co-signed by the following groups: AFT: Education, Healthcare, Public Services, EdTrust, National Association for College Admission Counseling, National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients), New America, Higher Education Program, Protect Borrowers, The Institute for College Access & Success, Third Way, UnidosUS, Veterans Education Success and Young Invincibles.