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Milspouses who have been keeping up with the MyCAA program and the upcoming changes may be interested in this link to MOAA. It links you to a letter to send to your representative calling their attention to the changes to the program and asking for a better resolution to the funding problems with it.
Basically, MyCAA ran out of money too fast because it was open to ALL milspouses regardless of level of previous education, sponsor rank, or intended program. They are cutting it back to junior ranks (I think E1-5, and O1 and O2) and limiting the type of program it can be used in. I believe the letter asks the reps to consider the issue of spouses of sponsors of other ranks (eg E6 and up)being cut out of the program.
I think there are a lot of spouses who had started families when their AD sponsor was in the lower ranks and now that the sponsor is E6 or higher, actually are able to go back to school and had been looking forward to using this program.
I'm not here to start a debate about it, just wanted to call attention to the letter writing campaign if anyone is upset by the change and wants to do something about it.
It does upset me they are ending this wonderful program.
We are at Fort Bliss and I have been unable to find a job for the last 3 years.
I was going to use the mycaa for school but now can not because my husband is a E-7
I feel we have been in the military for 16 years and I guess we earned it and now it is gone.
I do feel the lower rank needs to get it also but I think to just cut us out was unfair.
Why not say ok ....E6 and below get 4,000 and E7 and above get 2,000
not much but ever little bit helps and it would have been something.
Not saying it makes up for it, especially if the serviceman planned on using it himself or pass it on to a child, but you can use your spouse's GI bill.
The thing I think was smart (and I know some people heartily disagree with me on this) was the original limitation of the myCAA to cover only vocationally oriented programs (eg the short, targeted stuff like dental assisting, CAD training, phlebotomy, technical associate degrees, that kind of thing) and licensing costs for spouses who move and have to get a new license for the new state. It was intended to allow for fast training (as in get it finished before the next set of PCS orders comes up) that translates to a specific career/job. I did not like the rank restrictions nor the geographic restrictions (originally it was only for a few ranks and a select number of pilot program bases). When they lifted the original restrictions, they pretty much lifted them all. While it is great for a spouse who has zero to very few hours of college credit to set their sights on say, a Bachelors in Business Admin, I think the actual original intent was to give a little bit of a hand up to an OK paying job that was portable, then the spouse can use other means to complete a degree program, including that new income. By removing all restriction, people like me, who already have a BS, were able to pursue anything - heck I could have gone for a masters degree that was equally as unportable as my BS where a much more useful choice would have been something as simple as a 6 month course in becoming a phlebotomist or pharmacy technician.
I think they were trying to give spouses the opportunity to avoid getting stuck working at the BX for minimum wage or to avoid getting frustrated that what they had studied in college was just not translatable to this lifestyle. Morale thing.
I thought this would have been an incredibly useful program to all of those spouses with their BAs in liberal arts, and so on... who probably could have carved out a career staying in one place and working their way up but keep running into frustration when they move. They could have gone out and gotten some sort of certification in a definable skill set, possibly even a licensed occupation, and its a lot easier to start over at a new place with that in hand.
macjr - I did notice the GI bill rates have gone up (saw it in the 13 Sept AF Times) and that is definitely an option. Spouses who have not yet used up their Pell benefits should definitely fill out the FAFSA as well to see what kind of grants they can get.
I'm happy that my wife able to use the $6,000 toward her Master degree in Education before the rule change. Now we only needed to finance $12,000 of the cost for the degree and teaching certification. With the new rules we would have to pay for all of it out of our own pockets (I'm an E6 and she's a stay at home mom).
I have transfered all of my G.I. Bill to my daughter.
Education/teacher certification was one of the original approved programs, as it should have been. Had I wanted to be a teacher, there were three options for post-baccalaureate licensure in our old state that ranged from 15 mos to 24 mos (24 mos was the Masters level program).
I was able to get the 6k before it was changed thank god!!!
I'm kicking myself because I literally in the past 2 weeks (right after that 31 Aug deadline for submitting a career plan and still getting in under the most recent rules) have been rethinking. I was going to do a program that wasn't going to start til next fall and was going to last several years and was going to cost a heap of money, so the myCAA would have been nice but would have barely made a dent in the cost.
We just moved and I am now finally getting the opportunity to do something.
Now I don't think I am going to be able to pursue the big ambitious program and I could have planned on starting something else this spring and at least used whatever portion they would have doled out to me.
Seriously, they hyped up and promoted this program when it was in the pilot phase and got a ton of people chomping at the bit hoping it would open up. When it did, they opened the gates wide and apparently were completely surprised by the demand. I have no idea why they did not foresee the problem.
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