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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:05]:
Welcome back to Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. Today we're going to talk about higher education as it relates to veterans and the military. And in particular we're going to focus on the 90/10 rule, which is an issue that is of great concern to many in the higher education sector. And we have the perfect guest for that. He is Bob Carey, goes by the sign "ShoeBob" Carey. Maybe at the end you can tell me why that is, Bob. But he is the executive director of the National Defense Committee and that is an advocacy veterans organization dedicated to military and veterans legal and civil rights.
Jason Altmire [00:00:48]:
And just to kind of set the tone, he's done a lot of work related to public policy as it relates to veterans and he has served as the executive vice president for Independence Fund, which is a veterans organization serving catastrophically disabled veterans and their caregivers. And he has been the director of military and veterans engagement for the Republican National Committee as well. He's provided support for state and campaign committees in reaching military veterans and voters in particular. And he was previously president of a bipartisan and full service government affairs firm, an issue management firm. And that gives him a lot of experience related to this. He's worked on Capitol Hill. He he was a senior staffer for two different US Senators. He's been a senior policy advisors for cabinet level agencies, particularly the Department of Energy.
Jason Altmire [00:01:56]:
And I think most importantly, we would say and thank you for your service, Bob. He is a decorated combat veteran. He served both Operation Desert Storm and was redeployed after being called up after 911 and did combat missions after 9 11. So has huge experience related to the military but also public policy. He's worked on both sides of it, both from the advocacy perspective in working for firms, but also as I said, having worked both on the executive and legislative branches of government. So Bob, thank you so much for being with us and looking forward to what you have to say.
Bob Carey [00:02:44]:
Well, thank you very much and thanks for reaching out and asking me to join you today. I'm really looking forward to it.
Jason Altmire [00:02:50]:
Maybe let's start by talking about the National Defense Committee. You do work on higher education, but you look at other issues as well. What is the mission of the organization and what are some of the things you focus on?
Bob Carey [00:03:04]:
Well, as you said, we look at defending military and veteran legal and constitutional and civilization, civil rights. I actually got my start with the National Defense committee back in 2006 when I returned from one of my mobilizations to the Middle east and I had been unable to get my absentee ballot and cast it effectively. And so I started work with the National Defense Committee to work on military voting reform. Next thing I know, I'm doing it full time. Next thing you know, after that, I become the director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program at the Department of Defense. And we were able to do a lot of good in reforming that program back from 2009 to 2012. But I actually got my start in the military and veterans advocacy space working on military voting for National Defense Committee way back in 2006-2009. But one of the things that we, you know, look at education reform in terms of the military and veteran is that these are earned educational benefits.
Bob Carey [00:04:02]:
This is no different than than my military retired pay or the paycheck I got. And for the government to say where I can and can't use my earned educational benefits is sort of like them telling me, here's your paycheck now. You can only buy your groceries from the commissary. You can't go to Safeway. And that just seems wrong. And so we, you know, the freedom to contract is as much a natural and constitutional right as anything else. And we want to be able to preserve that ability of military and veteran students to figure out what kind of school is best for them.
Jason Altmire [00:04:36]:
You also have led and currently still lead a government consulting firm called Empire Capital Strategies, of which you're a principal. What does that group do?
Bob Carey [00:04:48]:
I actually started that back in 2003, and I did a lot of different projects. I worked on energy stuff, I worked on healthcare stuff. As I said, I started that firm back in 2003. Now it's sort of a overall management group for the things that I do. And so I contract with NASA, National Defense Committee contracts with Empire Capital Strategies for me to prevail, provide my managerial services and advocacy services for a national defense Committee. And I do the same thing with a couple of others. So it started as a government relations firm and public policy analysis firm. And it's pretty much the same thing, but it's more in the background.
Jason Altmire [00:05:26]:
Now, the reason I wanted to bring that up, and I referenced the Republican National Committee, and, you know, so you're familiar with how campaigns work, you're familiar with how public policy works, certainly the military. And you've served in addition to all that. So you really have been on all sides of this. You studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science in addition to other academic credentials that you have. And I mentioned all of that because there's so much attention paid to, let's say, The American Legion, the dav, the vfw, Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign wars and those organizations, and there are other organizations out there that advocate for veterans. We're going to get into 9010 specifically. But what would you say are generally the political leanings of the veterans advocacy community in Washington over the years? Which way would they lean?
Bob Carey [00:06:27]:
If I can let me take this from a little bit of a different perspective. The report that the National Defense Committee did a couple years ago about education reform and military and veteran educational benefits was entitled Condescending Paternalism. And that is a fundamental point of view that the National Defense Committee brings to all these issues, that there is this condescending paternalism amongst veteran advocacy groups, members of Congress, the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans affairs, that while military personnel are on active duty, America's mothers and fathers will trust the active duty personnel like I was with the lives of their sons and daughters. But once we become a veteran, we are no longer capable of making any decision whatsoever, especially when it comes to our education. And so we have got to be infantilized. We've got to be, you know, manage every step of the way and whether it is, you know, educational benefits, 9010 rule, gainful employment, financial transparency, 8515 rule, all of these, or things like the Military Lending act that limit how military personnel can gain access to capital, all of this boils down to the government saying, we're going to protect you from yourself. I don't think that military and veteran students are stupid. They know what they're doing and they're choosing non traditional educational avenues because they are non traditional students.
Bob Carey [00:07:56]:
They're usually older, they're usually married, they have kids, they have day jobs. I am currently a doctoral student at Liberty University and I do it online. And I taught at the Naval War College. I taught at the Naval Academy. I went through graduate school. It is rigorous academic education. But there are plenty of people that want to say that you cannot do this online, that it must be in person. And it seems to me that the only reason they're saying that it has to be in person is because they want to justify their buildings and their and their professors coming into class, when in fact I get a darn good education online.
Jason Altmire [00:08:36]:
Now, the 9010 rule applies to for profit schools. And what it says is that you can't get more than 90% of your revenue from federal sources. It used to say title four. And it was expanded under the Biden administration to include not just military and veterans organizations, but Also Department of Labor and some other stuff. And this is where you have really taken it upon the organization, but also upon yourself to talk about why that's detrimental to veterans and to people in the military who are seeking higher education. What is the advocacy, what is the argument for the 9010 rule existing and why do you think that those arguments are wrong and that it should be changed?
Bob Carey [00:09:27]:
Well, I recently did an editorial about the 9010 rule, and I think also about financial transparency. And one of the things I said is you look at the letter that some of these veterans education advocacy groups say, and they specifically say we advocated for the 9010 rule to limit the amount of money that can go to non traditional education to career educational institutions. That's it. They just don't want those schools getting the money, period. Why? Because there's a strong effort to preserve the market share of the traditional public and private nonprofit schools. But when they say that you have to count GI Bill benefits, GI Bill educational benefits, or tuition assistance benefits for the active duty military against that 9010 rule, why are they also including my retired pay? That's a federal funding and I use that to pay for my graduate degree. I use my. But they don't.
Bob Carey [00:10:22]:
Why? Because that is money I get. Whereas a GI Bill, the government pays the school directly. And so they have the ability to say, oh, this is government money, but it's government money only because I earned it. When I signed up for the GI Bill, I had to sign on for six more years. I had to say to the US Military, I'll give you six more years of service. You, you give me the GI Bill, and it's an earned benefit, just like my retirement. I had to do at least 20 years in the military to get my retirement. I had to, you know, every two weeks I had to do my duty in order to be able to get my paycheck.
Bob Carey [00:10:59]:
And so for them to then throw this in belies the fact that this has nothing to do with protecting the student, but trying to protect traditional public and private nonprofit schools from these non traditional schools that look like they're eating at traditional schools lunch.
Jason Altmire [00:11:15]:
9010 is portrayed, as you're saying, as some sort of measurement of quality. And it has nothing to do with a school's quality. It's purely a financial and accounting mechanism. And if you're a school that's located near a military base, for example, or in an area where there's a lot of veterans or any other scenario that would lead to enrolling more military and veterans or even folks using Title 4, then it's going to drive up close to that 90% or maybe over the 90%. It doesn't mean you're a bad school. Doesn't in any way score your quality.
Bob Carey [00:11:54]:
We already have a process for figuring out whether a school is quality or not. It's called their certification process and their accreditation. So why is the Department of Education or the Department of Veterans affairs putting in yet another accreditation process? Look, if it was my, I did get the ROTC scholarship, I was a ROTC student in college and they're giving me education in exchange for future military service or they're doing some other type of scholarship program, you know, so in that case, I can see them saying, we want you to go to this school and not to that school. Well, it's their policy objectives that they're spending this money. But when it comes to the post service benefits or the extraneous to service benefits, that's my money. So if they think that a school should not be accredited, they should be going to the accrediting agency and saying, you should take away this school's accreditation and here's why. But to try to backdoor it through the 9010 rule, that's just using the regulatory process to inflict punishment upon those they don't like.
Jason Altmire [00:12:58]:
And the 9010 rule also does not take into account taxpayer funds that a school may get through their states. Like a community college will be hugely subsidized or big public universities by the taxpayer, but it's through the states. And if your concern as a policymaker is that, well, if people aren't willing to pay out of pocket for the cost of their education, then somehow it's not worth it or it's not high quality, why doesn't that apply to all taxpayer funds? Subsidies that flow through?
Bob Carey [00:13:33]:
I hadn't thought of that. That's a really good point. Or even public subsidies. The public schools complain all the time that the states aren't giving them enough public funds, but they're still giving them pretty significant public funds. Why does that not count against us as well? Yeah, that's a very good point. And I hadn't thought of that.
Jason Altmire [00:13:50]:
Well, the reason I asked earlier about some of those other veterans groups, the dav, the VFW, and particularly the American Legion on this issue is, you know, when I was in Congress, those are very powerful organizations and people are very deferential to veterans and military organizations generally. And when they come in and they advocate for a certain perspective, you put great weight on that. But generally speaking, I have found that they, they lean to the right most of the time on, on many things, not on everything. But it's confusing why those groups, and the American Legion in particular, they would put such a priority on the 9010 rule, which as you said, actually restricts the choices of veterans and people in the military currently who seek higher education. It limits their options and it changes what their opportunity is related to their own personal preference in higher education. Why would groups like the American Legion, why would some veterans groups hold a position that would actually result in restricting the educational opportunities for their own members?
Bob Carey [00:15:05]:
So the nature of the veteran service organization and the veteran advocacy organizations is fundamentally changing. The traditional veteran organization with the local post and the state hierarchy. You know, I go to their national conventions and I'm the young guy, okay, I belong to a local American Legion post. I belong to a local VFW post. I'm an officer in both of those. Again, I'm the young guy and I'm 63. A lot of these traditional organization members come from a day when they remember the federal government basically providing them most of what they needed. And so that carries through.
Bob Carey [00:15:46]:
And these are membership based organizations. In addition to my role in National Defense Committee, I'm also the co chair of a coalition of 46 of the smaller niche oriented military and veteran groups called the National Military and Veterans Alliance. And we have a big say too. We are oftentimes engaging Capitol Hill. We coalesce together because we have some groups that work only on the caregiver issue, some that work only on post traumatic stress and mental health issues, others that work only on toxic exposure. So we get together as a group, a coalition, in order to be able to support each other in our specific areas. And I think that is the future of these types of organizations. And then the other thing is that maybe about 25% of members of Congress are veterans.
Bob Carey [00:16:37]:
Less than 1% of the staff are veterans. I half jokingly say there's a lot of congressional staffers who probably don't know the difference between the American Legion and the French Foreign Legion. And so anyone that walks through their door, you know, they'll think they're speaking for all veterans because they, because they don't have a whole lot of experience otherwise. And that's one of the reasons that I appreciate you bringing me on the show and why we've been so vocal about this is because we do want to give an alternative point of view. We do want to have an alternative voice. And, and we do want to do that which will best serve the military and veteran students.
Jason Altmire [00:17:12]:
It's a really good point. On staff, only 1% of staff are military veterans themselves. So they bring their life perspective in the way that they evaluate things. And that does, I'm sure, play a huge part of this issue. How are you received when you talk about this issue in the veterans community? You're very vocal. You've written op eds, you did an extensive report which can be found on your website, which I'm going to point people to at the end here. And you take every opportunity. You've testified before negotiated rulemaking.
Jason Altmire [00:17:47]:
I think you're going to have a high profile in future negotiated rulemaking sessions. You know, when you're with your veteran colleagues talking about this issue, how, how do they receive the comments that you make?
Bob Carey [00:18:00]:
I mean, first and foremost, they are sort of taken aback that I'm not taking the standard line. I think a lot of people, a lot of organizations went along the go along and said, sure, sure, I'll sign that letter. Yeah, let's, let's protect veterans from getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous diploma mills. You know, I look back on my early military career and I remember reading the biographies of this admiral or that general, and all of them had their masters from either Central Michigan University or University of Maryland University College was called back then. Now it's called University of Maryland Global Campus. And every single military facility had teachers from Central Michigan and UMUC on campus. And no one thinks that they're bad schools, but they were targeting military and veteran students. And it just goes back to the idea that they're trying to support their traditional public and private nonprofit schools because that's where all the current jobs are.
Bob Carey [00:19:05]:
And they built up this whole infrastructure. You see these reports about how the staff at these public and private nonprofit schools has tripled over the last 20 years. But the number of staff that are teaching have actually stayed the same. And all the additional staff are non teaching staff. It's like why you're a college. Your purpose is to teach. And so non traditional schools, career educational schools, they're focusing on what the students want. They want to be taught.
Bob Carey [00:19:33]:
And so when I say this stuff in the veteran space, most of the organizations just go back to the old trope, but we got to protect the student. To which I say, regulations are not a place to enforce criminal law. If you think an organization is defrauding military and veteran students, go to the Department of Justice, go to the local state attorney general, you know, get them on fraud, get them on wire fraud. If it's crossing state boundaries, do like the US Postal Service does and take them to court for criminal violations. Don't try to prevent crimes through regulations. Prosecute crimes through the criminal law.
Jason Altmire [00:20:14]:
What is the solution? This is something that has to be dealt with if change is made through the legislative branch, because Congress has authorized 9010. If we wanted to change 9010 again and it went through the legislative process, there would have to be greater support on the congressional side. How is your group working to grow that congressional support? And what is the next step for those who were interested in modifying 9010 or maybe eliminating 9010 altogether?
Bob Carey [00:20:47]:
So there's been some legislative activity between the House and the Senate about these issues. And recently the House passed a bill that would repeal 9010 as well as the authorizing legislation that produced the regulation. And the Congressional Budget Office, you know, showed that it was going to save $10 billion over four years by repealing those two regulations. The Senate, when they were looking at their version of this, they didn't include it. They focused almost exclusively on things like, you know, school loan forgiveness. And so, you know, one of the things that National Defense Committee is doing is going to the Senate and saying, you guys are justifiably scared of how bad the debt is right now. $36 trillion. We can be saving $2.5 billion a year by getting rid of these regulations.
Bob Carey [00:21:36]:
Why don't you just throw this into your bill as well and get it through? I fear that there are some senators, both Republican and Democratic, who sort of view the same sort of condescending paternalism. Oh, we got to take care of the veterans. And again, you know, National Defense Committee, while we're trying hard, we're somewhat new to the game. You know, there's been other groups out there, like Veterans Education Success and Student Veterans of America, who have been pushing this sort of stuff for, you know, years. And so nothing changes overnight. But your listeners can call the number for the Senate and ask for their senator and say, get rid of the 9010 regulation like the House did. And you get enough calls, they start to listen. It's 202, 224, 3121.
Jason Altmire [00:22:22]:
So in bringing this to a close, I referenced earlier your call sign. You go by Shoe Bob Carry, and it's you. You say you don't like to talk about why that is, but that only piques my interest. Are you, are you willing to say what, what that means? Why is your call sign shoe bub?
Bob Carey [00:22:39]:
No one gets a Good call sign. In the. In the Navy, there's no Mavericks or Iceman or Goose or Hollywood. No, you're Shoe Bob. In my squadron, we had a guy named Princess Madonna. Spaz, Spanky, Psycho, Spicy. You only get a call sign for things that you've done wrong. The Navy is probably the most tribal of all the services to the extent that, like, you can be a ship driver or an aviator or a submariner and do your entire career and never work with one of the other portions of the Navy.
Bob Carey [00:23:13]:
And so it's to the point where we even have different uniforms for different ranks in the military as well as different uniforms for different sections of the military. So the ship drivers, those guys, they wear black shoes with their khaki uniforms, and the aviators, they wear brown shoes with their khaki uniforms. So there's a black shoe Navy and a brown shoe Navy. I started off as a ship driver, a black shoe. I did that for one year. 11 months, 14 days, 53 minutes, 28 seconds. Great tour. Awesome tour, as you can probably tell.
Bob Carey [00:23:47]:
And then I became an aviator, an A6 Bombardier Navigator. I show up at my first squadron, and I have my ship driving pin underneath my ribbons, and I have my wings above my ribbons. And my new squadron mates are apoplectic. You're a black shoe. A black shoe in our squadron. Skipper, how did this happen? So finally they come up to me and they're like, fine, your call sign is shoebox. Okay? There's only one thing worse than calling someone a black shoe. Just calling them a shoe.
Bob Carey [00:24:15]:
And so, fine, your call sign is Shoebob. So you're reminded 15 to 20 times a day how much we hate you being here. So. So that's. And you know what? You don't fight a. You don't fight a call sign. You embrace it. And so people around town oftentimes know me more as Shoebob than they do as Bob.
Jason Altmire [00:24:33]:
Yeah, no, you. You are Shoebob Carey, for sure. So our guest today has been Bob Shoebob Carey, and he is the executive director of the National Defense Committee. Among many other things, as I talked about, Bob, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you or with the committee and learn more about your work, particularly on 90/10 and other higher education issues, how would they do it?
Bob Carey [00:25:00]:
Director@nationaldefensecommittee.com. and it's all National Defense Committee, all one word director@national defensecommittee.com.
Jason Altmire [00:25:07]:
Well, thank you very much. This has been instructive. And we look forward to continuing to work with you in the months and years ahead and see what we can do about this. Bob Carey, thank you for being with us.
Bob Carey [00:25:18]:
Thank you.
Jason Altmire [00:25:21]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's C E C U E D. Thank you for listening.