Veterans Affairs Task Force

Declaration

Our Mission: To ensure that veterans returning to our great state have access to affordable higher education through the UW, we wish to organize students within United Council to provide advocacy and support towards the following policy platform.

  • The first policy addresses the Veteran’s Coordinator at UW Campuses. This coordinator is the first administrator that veterans deal with, as it is their job to assist veterans in applying for both State and Federal aid, and to answer any general questions veterans may have. This position often has many responsibilities beyond assisting student veterans and is often not paid as a full-time position. This leads to a backlog of veterans who are seeking to apply for aid, creating the risk that students will be turned away past the tuition and class deadlines. The timely arrival of aid is vital to a veteran’s successful start at any UW School. Therefore, Coordinators must either have part-time assistants, or be paid as a full-time position, which focuses solely on Veterans Affairs.
  • The second policy is related to the availability of Mental Health Counseling for those students that have served in the military. May on-campus counselors are not trained to deal with Combat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), thus leaving student veterans with few options should they suffer from this disorder. We would like UW counselors to have at least basic training in helping veterans, especially now that mental health counseling has been mandated within the UW Colleges. Additionally, making specialists available to veterans via these counselors would be very beneficial to students
  • The Third policy deals with the transfer of credits to UW Schools. Credits earned from Armed Forces Service training should easily transfer over to UW schools and be applicable towards a degree. The UW should also have a breakdown for this process so that veterans can see which classes can transfer. Currently, a support structure exists for traditional transfer students attempting to move to a four-year school, and a similar program for veterans should be created to promote success within UW Schools.
  • The fourth and final policy is the Yellow Ribbon program. The Yellow Ribbon program is a Veterans Affairs program in which schools can participate. Presently, the only participant in the UW System is UW-Green Bay. This program is important because it allowed institutions to enter into an agreement with the VA and contribute a specific dollar amount towards tuition and expenses. The VA will the match this contribution up to 50% of the difference. Many veterans choose to attend private institutions rather than UW schools so they have access to this program. So in order to make the UW attractive and affordable for veterans, the expansion of this program is essential.
  • The fifth issue is the tuition disburse process and timing with the UW System with the specific process of funding students and having money available in a timely fashion at the begining of the semester for books and beginning of the year fees.

We, the founding members, resolve to form this task force to enable other students to support these policy changes in the next Biennium, so that Student Veterans can have access to affordable higher education in the State of Wisconsin.

Lead Contacts

Click here to see a list of  Veteran Student Orgs in UW System

Recent Updates

  • Changes to Veteran’s Benefits