VETERANS ROUNDTABLE on HIGHER EDUCATION:
WRITTEN STATEMENT OF LUCAS THOMPSON
Marine Corps Veteran; Resident of Aurora, IL
U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Hearing Room
December 8, 2025
Hello everyone, my name is Lucas Thompson and I am a Marine Corps veteran from Aurora, Illinois. Even though I have a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a 25-year career in sales, I had a very hard time finding full-time employment. As a veteran with a service-connected disability, some employers saw me as a liability rather than an asset.
A few years ago, I was consulting for my brother’s business, when I heard about VRRAP, the Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program. I thought it would be a great opportunity to expand my skills in marketing and creativity and earn a certificate that could help me build my own business.
I learned about the Illinois Media School from the program’s list of approved schools. It was located near me and offered digital marketing, which seemed valuable in a changing landscape. For the first month and a half, things were going well. But I noticed that I was in classes that weren’t originally part of the curriculum for digital marketing.
I tried to make the school aware that I seemed to be enrolled in the wrong program, but it took weeks to get any answers. When I finally got through to the executive staff and told them that there was a mistake, I had been in the wrong classes for six weeks.
The school said it could get me back on the right path, but that it would mean an extra three months before I could earn my certificate. I finished the certificate because if I stopped then, I would have spent six months working hard for nothing, but it meant even more time out of work. They wouldn’t let me do the extra time online, and I lost work opportunities as a result. There were good people at the school, but they were hiring and firing employees so fast that mistakes were made.
I thought this short-term certificate program would be great, but the companies that are approved to administer these programs need to have better guardrails in place to make sure that they can deliver on what they promise to student veterans. Veterans are trying to find ways to create a better career for themselves and their families. Schools should deliver on their promises to help veterans do just that, or else they should not be given access to our benefits.
Thank you for your time.
Statement_Lucas Thompson