A coalition of national education and veteran advocacy organizations has announced four pilot sites, including Indiana Wesleyan University-National and Global, in a new initiative that will help service members and veterans apply their military-based skills and training toward civilian credentials.
The coalition—which comprises five organizations—is supporting the Military Credentialing Advancement Initiative (MCAI). The goal of MCAI is to ensure that the high-quality learning that is gained by service members can be fully recognized, counted toward a credential and scaled at a national level.
Each of the four pilot sites are leveraging one-year grants between $150,000 and $200,000. IWU–National and Global will use the funds to build pathways that will allow service members and veterans to apply the skills and credentials they gain in service toward continued education and employment as civilians.
The other MCAI pilot pathways grant recipients are:
- UWUA Power for America Training Trust Fund
- Kansas Board of Regents
- Lone Star College
Technical assistance for the grantees will be provided by SOLID, LLC, a leading expert in credentialing of service members and veterans.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs statistics show that, of the roughly 200,000 veterans who enter the civilian workforce each year, only about 50,000 have the credentials they need to land good jobs with family-sustaining wages. Though the Department of Defense and Uniformed Services have taken steps to remedy this, more than 70% of former servicemen and women still must retrain, requalify or start over in education.
This is especially true for service members of color, who make up 43% of the active duty force. More than half of Black, Hispanic and Native American service members are clustered in four occupations that lack clear paths to civilian credentials and jobs: food service, supply administration, combined personnel and administration, and warehousing and equipment handling.
Also, only 57% of veterans say they hold a non-degree credential, and less than 2.5% of active duty members in 2016 had completed a degree program. These figures could indicate that lack of recognition of learning experiences continues to hamper service members and veterans as they pursue further education and employment.
“Indiana Wesleyan University has a long history of improving educational access for adult learners,” said Matt Lucas, chancellor of IWU-National and Global. “We are proud to be part of MCAI as we improve service members’ and veterans’ transition to civilian workforce by building stackable, transparent credential programs that lead to strong employment outcomes. We look forward to sharing our learning with the larger higher education community as we serve those who have served this nation.”
The MCAI pilot sites are supported by a coalition of five organizations:
- The American Legion
- Ascendium Education Group
- Greater Texas Foundation
- Lumina Foundation
- Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Ascendium’s funding will support a detailed evaluation of the pilot initiative as it unfolds over 18 months. The formative evaluation, which will be conducted by an independent research firm, DVP-Praxis, seeks to highlight the lessons MCAI grantees learn as they map military competencies and build new credential pathways.