Didn't have this kinda stuff when I was in

[29palms]

Wow, has the military changed in the past 30 years! When I was in, there was no SMARTS. They didn't keep our records in transcript form. In fact, I had to reconstruct mine a few years ago. Reason I wanted this in SMARTS, (which stands for Sailor Marine Transcript Service) was because I was able to place my associates degree in the smarts system because I was in service during that time when I finished the degree, so I had them put it in Smarts so I wouldn't have to go back to all my colleges to get transcripts. Pretty much like ACE does, they compiled all of my transcripts into one transcript service. It's a handy service, plus they even evaluated some of my boot camp and correspondence courses for possible ACE evaluated/recommended credit.

I don't ever remember DANTES nor CLEP and getting any kind of free testing on those. When did all that happen? I was on the butt end of education in the military. We had the VEAP program, which is gone down in history as the worse educational program for the military in modern history bar none. I didn't even put in for it, and alot of those that did, never used it and lost their money.

Lastly, we didn't have internet to look anything up for information such as this flow of information we get on this board. And no such thing as internet or web courses. I have heard of correspondence courses, but never had internet based back then. I first attended a college class in 1980, right after I graduated from High School.

[IrishJohn]

Well I can tell you that they had Dantes & CLEP exams back in the early 1990s when I was in the Navy, I actually finished some of those on base for free. I sure wish I had completed many more but this was in the pre-internet days and I had no idea TESC even existed back then. In fact, I only discovered TESC and IC in 2009! Thank God for the internet and the opportunities this has given to the next generation as well as middle-aged folks like myself to finish college.

[29palms]

I learned about TESC when I bought the BEARS GUIDE to DISTANCE EDUCATION. He had TESC as being KING of all of them. This was around early 1990's or so. I never liked TESC tuition structure, however, if you play the game right, you may get away with paying a token couple of grand.

[LaterBloomer]

When I was in the Army in the mid-80s, they had CLEP. (Probably had DANTES, too, but, if so, I probably would have figured that they were tests about military stuff.) While I never took any exams while in the Army (my loss), I did take all 5 general CLEPs while on terminal leave. (Thirty credits in two days of testing!) I don't know about you, but during in-processing at each duty station all of the education office stuff sort of slid by me. In addition, I never had NCOs above me who pushed that sort of thing. For all of you NCOs out there, I hope that you're pushing - yes, pushing - your lower enlisted to take advantage of the opportunities that the military offers. While VEAP might not have been great, I used it. Any problems with it were more on my side than on the military's.

[29palms]

Honestly, Marines and college don't mix too well. We spent too much time on the field or deployed at sea. It was darned near impossible to do this. The information just wasn't there, the accessibility was impossible. Maybe some Marines in some billets lucked out and pushed the envelope, and were lucky enough, or ambitious enough to do this however, I never saw a possibility. I always chalked it up as one of the USMC's greatest white lies. "YOU CAN DO COLLEGE IN THE USMC". I bet you the percentage are so small back in those days, early 1980's of Marines coming out of the USMC with college degrees. Incredibally, I think only recently did ACE start offering college credits for military experience, certain courses taken while there. One thing I do admit is that the USMC taught me things you would never learn in college. Like work ethic, being on time to keep your job, keeping a clean cut look, having discipline to do what needs to be done. Not to mention, practical work experience in many things including learning on weaponry, weapon systems, communications, maintenance. It also gave me a complete different outlook on everything. It kind of formed me alot of what I am today. So definately not a waste of time, and only the few can say that we were one of the few/proud/the MARINES! I never used VEAP however, I believe I made that up when I took a military contract job with MPS forces working shipboard for 5 years. I saved money there to pay for my school in aviation maintenance. I did education my way. Saved the money, and still had money left over to party and live with while going to school. It all came out in the wash I suppose.

[dcan]

I believe DANTES started in the early 70s. CLEP may have been around that time as well. DANTES is/was a DoD initiative to get troops educated in a non-traditional manner.

We are incredibly lucky in the Air Force. Education is pushed hard most places and supervisors often give at least an extended lunch period to study, depending on the job and mission requirements. Community College of the Air Force opened in 1972 and gained regional accreditation in 1979, and in the past few years awarded its 400,000th associate's degree. A CCAF degree is effectively required for promotion to E-8 now. There is also a movement afoot to have Air University award a bachelor's degree as part of the enlisted career path. AU already awards masters degrees and a PhD, plus there is the Air Force Institute of Technology that grants master's degrees and PhDs in technical research. I know an officer who got a PhD in operations research with a dissertation on using mathematical modeling to discover connections between people who don't want to be discovered, tailored to identifying hidden relationships in terrorist cells.

Conversely the Marines last year tried to cut TA down from $4,500 per year to $875 per year, barely enough for one class. I guess they were going to cut there instead of cutting a weapon system or personnel. But the DoD ordered the cap restored to $4,500. But Marines (and Army) are in a tough spot trying to take classes. The jobs and missions are not as flexible to accommodate education. It's a tough road.

There has been serious discussion of a Community College of the Armed Forces in the past decade or so, but the hurdles are massive. But if it could happen the benefit would be huge for all the enlisted in all branches.

I'm expecting TA to get gutted, maybe as early as this year. The Post-9/11 GI Bill is already free for everyone, and it is funded through the VA. DoD could drop all TA and save a huge chunk of money, and shift all costs to VA and get them off the books. I think we will start being weaned back to 75% TA to start with soon, and it will slowly go down from there.