Measuring the Success of Student Veterans and Active Duty Military Students

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) spend approximately $10 billion annually for education benefits for veterans and active duty military. According to a new report from InsideTrack and NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, although colleges and universities are making progress better serving veterans and active duty military, they are doing so without access to reliable data or strong measurement tools on enrollment, retention, and completion. The report draws on responses from a survey of over 200 colleges and universities ranging in size, sector, and location, designed to understand the efforts institutions are making towards tracking education progress and outcomes of military students. 

Among the report’s findings:

• Nearly 75% of responding colleges and universities have dedicated staff or personnel focused exclusively on military student populations.
  • Additionally, a majority of campuses offer professional development to staff, faculty, and administrators to help them understand the unique needs of military students.
• Despite the commitment on many campuses to serving these students, only one-quarter have a detailed understanding of why military students may be dropping or “stopping” (temporarily withdrawing) out of school.
  • This result indicates a lack of information for how to design support services on campuses for military students.
• Only 22% of institutions are disaggregating data on retention and completion rates for active duty military students. Only 26% are disaggregating for student veterans.
  • In spite of the fact that the majority of institutions are tracking neither retention nor completion, over one third have short-term goals for improving retention and completion rates for both student veterans and active duty military students.
• Only 5% of institutions claimed their military student initiatives were successful and had the data to prove it; most institutions lacked any data to evaluate their efforts.