Battle of the Bilge

Too Successful to Keep

In 2009, the MyCaa program was initiated to help all servicemembers’ spouses further their careers by providing up to $6,000 in grants to take a variety of educational and credentialing programs. The program was meant to help with the disruptions to military families caused by frequent moves and deployments.

However, after the program proved to be incredibly popular and subsequently expensive, the program was cut off to new participants. After an uproar of complaints, the Department of Defense announced in July that the program would open up to new applicants again starting in October. At first the news seemed to be excellent. Furthering spouse education and career advancement should be a high priority of DoD to help military families.

Then we all took a closer look at what the new program entails.

Too Weak to Succeed

First, the amount of the aid was reduced to only $4,000 over a two year period, with a yearly ceiling of $2,000. This includes a total cap of $4,000 per person, so you can not continue beyond the initial phase. It also requires the spouse to complete their associates degree or certification or licensing program courses within three years, starting with the date of the first enrollment. In other words, DoD will help you start out on a program that will most likely take more than two years given the demands of family life (especially for spouses of deployed servicememebers), but they won’t help you go for a bachelors degree or post graduate education.

Second, and more important to our members and spouses, the program only applies to the most junior servicemembers’ spouses (E-1 through E-5 in the enlisted grades, warrant officers in grades W-1 and W-2, and officers in grades O-1 and O-2). Spouses of any other grades are not eligible for educational aid and it is also only applicable to active duty personnel.

Help Us Fix This

Our military force is stretched thin and deployments are stressing families to unprecedented levels. What kind of message is this reinstatement of the program at severely under funded and restricted levels sending to our troops and their families? If the program was too successful to fund originally, doesn’t that signal a very strong need in the community? And with the economy the way it is, shouldn’t we be promoting a program that will lead to a stronger workforce?

Many military organizations have praised the reopening of enrollment for MyCaa, but MOAA feels that it is not acceptable with the new guidelines. Please help us express this to Congress and get the inequity fixed.

Use this link to send a message to your elected officials. Share the link with friends. You don’t need to be logged in or in the military to use the link provided. Our military families are too important to be taken for granted.

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