Survey on Military-Friendly Schools and Lists
Military MBA and the GI Bill Hub recently partnered to conduct a survey on how veterans use the term military-friendly to make decisions on their future educations.
Summary of Findings
The survey showed veterans do not use military-friendly schools and lists when deciding on universities and college degree programs. Military-friendly, as a way to describe schools and programs, is a frequently overused term that has no consistent meaning or value to veterans.
Results of Military-Friendly Survey
Q1: Does the general term, military-friendly schools provide meaningful, or valuable, information that you can reliably use to make good decisions? Yes/No?
No - 52.2% (has no value)
Yes - 47.8% (has some value)
Note: Among those who answered "yes", there are no standard definitions of what being military-friendly actually means.
Q2: Would you enroll in a college degree program based solely upon an organization advertising their military-friendly status? Yes/No?
No - 86.9% (do not use term to make decisions on enrollment)
Yes - 13.1% (use term to make decisions on enrollment)
Q3: In your opinion, is the term military-friendly unique or overused? Unique/Overused?
Overused - 69.5% (term is misused, abused or overused)
Unique - 21.8% (term is unique)
Neither - 8.7%
Quotes
"There are far too many unaccredited or unrecognized institutions preying on service members and veterans and claiming to be military friendly just because they can accept G.I. Bill money. To me a truly military friendly degree program does nice things out of recognition for my service. A great example would be Dartmouth, which waives application fees for recent vets. Or UVA, which (I believe) has a special scholarship for which vets can apply. Bottom line, many 'military friendly' schools are "friendly" when they want to take something from a vet, only a few are really trying to help."
"The term 'military-friendly schools' doesn't make sense when applying it in terms of higher education."
"Military-friendly is overused among lower quality schools as everyone seems to have it."
"I feel any applicant would be unwise to base their college decision on only one factor such as a military-friendly school."
"The term 'military-friendly schools' does not provide me with information to make decisions. Additionally, it is not clear what this means."
"If being 'military friendly' means something different for every school that advertises it, then it means nothing really."
"It didn't become apparent which schools were 'military-friendly' until I began to conduct some research and dig deeper to find which schools are truly receptive to military folks and which also have supportive student communities."
"My decision to go to Arizona State was in part based on 'military friendliness', but only as expressed and shown to me through dialogue with their admissions staff."
"The best measures characterize a specific, articulated criteria behind it, such as participation in the yellow ribbon program for tuition costs."
Methodology
The original survey was sent one time (1x) to 1,114 military personnel in all branches of the service. We received 46 completed surveys, which is a 4.13% response rate. Status as active duty, reserve and transition/retired members of the service were represented. As such, the research represents a statistically reliable and valid survey.
Summary of Findings
The survey showed veterans do not use military-friendly schools and lists when deciding on universities and college degree programs. Military-friendly, as a way to describe schools and programs, is a frequently overused term that has no consistent meaning or value to veterans.
Results of Military-Friendly Survey
Q1: Does the general term, military-friendly schools provide meaningful, or valuable, information that you can reliably use to make good decisions? Yes/No?
No - 52.2% (has no value)
Yes - 47.8% (has some value)
Note: Among those who answered "yes", there are no standard definitions of what being military-friendly actually means.
Q2: Would you enroll in a college degree program based solely upon an organization advertising their military-friendly status? Yes/No?
No - 86.9% (do not use term to make decisions on enrollment)
Yes - 13.1% (use term to make decisions on enrollment)
Q3: In your opinion, is the term military-friendly unique or overused? Unique/Overused?
Overused - 69.5% (term is misused, abused or overused)
Unique - 21.8% (term is unique)
Neither - 8.7%
Quotes
"There are far too many unaccredited or unrecognized institutions preying on service members and veterans and claiming to be military friendly just because they can accept G.I. Bill money. To me a truly military friendly degree program does nice things out of recognition for my service. A great example would be Dartmouth, which waives application fees for recent vets. Or UVA, which (I believe) has a special scholarship for which vets can apply. Bottom line, many 'military friendly' schools are "friendly" when they want to take something from a vet, only a few are really trying to help."
"The term 'military-friendly schools' doesn't make sense when applying it in terms of higher education."
"Military-friendly is overused among lower quality schools as everyone seems to have it."
"I feel any applicant would be unwise to base their college decision on only one factor such as a military-friendly school."
"The term 'military-friendly schools' does not provide me with information to make decisions. Additionally, it is not clear what this means."
"If being 'military friendly' means something different for every school that advertises it, then it means nothing really."
"It didn't become apparent which schools were 'military-friendly' until I began to conduct some research and dig deeper to find which schools are truly receptive to military folks and which also have supportive student communities."
"My decision to go to Arizona State was in part based on 'military friendliness', but only as expressed and shown to me through dialogue with their admissions staff."
"The best measures characterize a specific, articulated criteria behind it, such as participation in the yellow ribbon program for tuition costs."
Methodology
The original survey was sent one time (1x) to 1,114 military personnel in all branches of the service. We received 46 completed surveys, which is a 4.13% response rate. Status as active duty, reserve and transition/retired members of the service were represented. As such, the research represents a statistically reliable and valid survey.
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