“Gov. Larry Hogan and the Maryland General Assembly have made the state the first in the nation to pass important protections for veterans who often fall prey to deceptive marketing practices of failing for-profit colleges.
The Veterans Education Protection Act eliminates the incentive for for-profit colleges to deceive and defraud veterans. Specifically for Maryland, it closes a federal loophole that currently inadvertently incentivizes failing for-profit colleges to target GI Bill funds to prop up their revenues.
The federal rule requires for-profit colleges to receive at least 10% of their tuition revenue from non-federal sources. The language is vague enough to allow these schools to count veterans’ education benefits as private revenue, thereby completely skirting the federal limit, and providing a powerful — and perverse — incentive to enroll as many veterans as possible. Fortunately, Maryland has stepped up to close this loophole, at least within its borders, creating a state “90/10 rule” that disallows Maryland-based schools from counting veterans’ education benefits as private revenue.”