Spouse Scholarship MyCAA to Resume on Sat
This morning DoD announced the MyCAA will resume this Saturday! Spouses currently enrolled in MyCAA, me included, are breathing a sigh of relief this program has been reinstated. Interrupting our regular programing, our March 2nd radio show features reactions from military spouses affected the shutdown. By popular demand, we also decided to let it run for an additional week to bring awareness and call spouses to action to speak out. On the show we highlight the MyCAA Facebook page “Take Action Against MyCAA Shutdown”, which features 2,000 plus milspouses in just two short weeks. For spouses who have yet to be approved, we will keep you updated on any new announcements for open enrollment.
Bravo Zulu to all the military spouses who were spurred into action and commented on the Facebook page, listened to the show, wrote their Congressmen and Senators, talked to the press and raised awareness on this issue. Your voices were heard and made a difference!!
In the days following the announcement of a temporary pause of the Career Advancement Account – MyCAA – we have heard your feedback, suggestions and concerns.
We are pleased to announce that the MyCAA program will resume operations on March 13, 2010, at 12 p.m., noon (EST) for military spouses who currently have existing MyCAA accounts. Those who have an existing account will have access to the entire Web site, including the ability to create and have financial documents approved.
We are currently developing options for the long-term management of the program and expect to be able to announce the details soon. Until then, no new accounts can be created. During this time, Military OneSource Spouse Education and Career Consultants will continue to be available to provide education and training, career exploration, assessment, employment readiness and career search assistance.
Stars and Stripes has also just released this story:
Spouse education program payouts to resume Saturday
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, March 12, 2010ARLINGTON, Va. — A program that offers up to $6,000 to military spouses for education-related expenses will resume on Saturday, but it will not accept new applicants, a Defense Department spokesman said.
The My Spouse Career Advancement Accounts was established in March 2009, but due to an unexpected surge in demand, the program was suddenly put on hold last month.
The 136,583 people already enrolled in the program will be able to receive the money again starting on Saturday, said Marine Col. David Lapan.
“We made a commitment to our military spouses when they established a career advancement account and we will be true to our promises,” Tommy Thomas, deputy under secretary of defense, military community and family policy, said in a news release.
It is not yet known if the program will accept new applicants in the future, Lapan told reporters on Thursday.
“This is the first step of how the department is going to address this program,” he said. “There will be other things in the future that we’ll come back and talk about when we have them.”
The department is looking at how to fund the program in the future, Lapan said. He could not say where the funding to restart the program came from in the department’s budget.
“Until new accounts can be created, Military OneSource Spouse Education and Career Consultants will continue to be available to provide education and training, career exploration, assessment, employment readiness and career search assistance,” the Defense Department news release said.
News last month that the program had been suspended came as a surprise to many participating students, who suddenly found that they could no longer access their accounts.
“One day I went to sign in on my account and there was nothing there, it was frozen,” Jennifer Hemm, a student with University of Maryland University College in Europe, told Stars and Stripes earlier this month. “The program was very beneficial — this is upsetting.”
A senior defense official conceded Wednesday that the department did a poor job letting people know why the program was put on hiatus.
“We know we must make a concerted effort to restore our credibility and confidence with our military spouses, servicemembers and the American public,” said Clifford Stanley, undersecretary for personnel and readiness.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=68631
I’m feeling pretty grateful this benefit has been reinstated and thank all those involved in pushing for the reinstatement of MyCAA.
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In messages to schools today from the program director…
“MyCAA will not fund any courses that do not have an
approved financial assistance document prior to the start date of the
course.”
This means that if your approval or request for approval was prevented due to the ‘halt’ you are not eligible for any government payment for those courses. So, they still have some work to do to get this right.
No doubt, some have started classes during the ‘halt’ and were thus prevented from getting their requests and approvals processed due to the ‘halt’, however, all others will have requests and approvals honored. So, hopefully by all of us writing, you can get this gap closed and remove any impact it might have for still thousands that were impacted for classes that have started during the ‘halt.’
Great work by all for taking citizen action and getting results. Thanks too should go to the military lobbying organizations that got an immediate and impactful result on the behalf of its membership, their spouses and the military community.