Tuition Exemption for Firefighters vs Peace Officers

[sanantone]

In Texas, peace officers are able to take undergraduate, criminal justice-related courses for free at any public college or university in the state. I looked at the list of qualifying degrees at each school. The choices are mostly limited to criminal justice and law enforcement. What's odd is that some community colleges list their basic peace officer course, but licensed peace officers have already been to the police academy. There are a couple of forensics programs at community colleges, but they aren't available online. Reserve police officers (volunteers) do not qualify for tuition exemption.

College For All Texans: Exemption for Peace Officers Enrolled in Law Enforcement or Criminal Justice Courses

Also in Texas, certified firefighters can also go to college for free. Unlike with peace officers, volunteer firefighters do qualify for tuition exemption if they have been volunteering for at least a year. Also unlike with the peace officer tuition exemption, firefighters can take graduate courses for free. The programs are supposed to be related to fire science, but the State of Texas has a very broad definition for what is considered related to fire science. Looking at the list of pre-approved programs, you'll see emergency medicine/paramedic studies, political science, industrial safety/safety engineering, chemistry, nursing, instructional training and design, respiratory therapy, environmental health, Doctor of Pharmacy, public affairs/public administration, business administration, and a basic peace officer academy in addition to fire science and emergency services management.

College For All Texans: Firefighters Taking Fire Science Courses

EMT/paramedic programs make since, but most of the other ones are just weird and prepare people for careers outside of firefighting and emergency management. An MPA can be useful to a fire service supervisor/manager, but it's also useful for a supervisory police officer. I'm trying to think why they would offer graduate courses to firefighters, but not police officers. My guess is that it would be too expensive to offer them to peace officers since there are a lot more of them. This also might be a way of getting people to volunteer as firefighters since there is a shortage of them. I can't think of a good reason to offer them programs such as Doctor of Pharmacy and instructional training and design. Oh, well. It's time for me to sign up as a volunteer firefighter.