Passed into law on June 30, 2008, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 includes three general components that enhance education benefits for service members and veterans. The bill:

• Creates a new veterans education benefits program for service members on active duty on or after September 10, 2001
• Increases veterans education benefits under the preexisting Montgomery GI Bill
• Authorizes the Defense Department to develop a program that allows active-duty service members to transfer education benefits to their family members

The new bill puts additional educational funding into the pockets of service members and veterans who wish to enroll in college as they transition to civilian life. According to the American Council on Education (ACE), the new bill generally provides a better package of benefits in terms of eligibility criteria and financial value than the old provisions. However, the best option for each service member will depend on his or her circumstances.

Colleges with CLEP policies are ideally positioned to enroll these prospective students in degree programs.

• CLEP test centers can administer DANTES-funded exams to active-duty military and to veterans.
• CLEP campus administrators and advisors seeking to enroll and serve veterans and military should make sure the credit-granting policy for CLEP and other credit-by-exams programs is prominently posted where veterans and service members can find it, and that it clearly lists the exam titles, scores required, and amount of credit granted.
• Advisors and military and veteran liaisons should be familiar with the CLEP policy, have copies of the policy available, and be ready to answer questions.

To learn more about the new GI Bill visit the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website.

Read the ACE Q&A on the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act of 2008.

The American Council on Education (ACE) has released application guidelines for its ACE/Wal-Mart Success for Veterans Award Grants. Applications for the 20 available $100,000 grants are due by noon EST on Monday, March 2, 2009.

The ACE/Wal-Mart Success for Veterans Award Grants will recognize higher education institutions for demonstrated leadership in developing programs to increase access to and success in postsecondary education for veterans and their families. Each recipient will be presented with an award grant to support the further development of these programs and services and to participate in the dissemination of lessons learned and best practices.

The Success for Veterans Award Grants are part of ACE's Serving Those Who Serve initiative, a multiyear effort designed to effect major changes in how veterans learn about their education benefits and postsecondary options and how institutional leaders can build capacity to serve veterans on their campuses. The agenda will also include a college planning website and outreach campaign to inform veterans about accessing and utilizing their education benefits, research-based publications, and regional meetings to ease implementation of the new GI Bill benefits.

For more information, visit www.acenet.edu/STWS.

The Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES), which provides education support to the Department of Defense, celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. DANTES services extend throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) to help military personnel complete their postsecondary education programs. Its services cover all branches of the military and their Reserve components.

Informally, DANTES also serves as a broker for the DoD to the American academic community by evaluating the educational programs that are available in the civilian world and then determining if those programs can be imported into the military.

DANTES aims to provide service members with the same educational opportunities available to civilians—and its success in doing so enables the agency to use education as a recruiting and retention tool. As a result, many service members enter the military planning to continue their pursuit of higher education, rather than to defer working toward a degree.

	According to the United States Department of Veteran Affairs... Over 500,000 military personnel, veterans, and eligible dependents utilized their GI Bill (education) benefits in fiscal year 2007. Source: http://www.gibill.va.gov

Access to credit-by-examination is among the services offered by the agency. "DANTES has had an absolutely wonderful relationship with CLEP for over 30 years, to the extent that CLEP has become institutionalized within the military," says Dr. Jeffrey Cropsey, the director of DANTES since 2005. "There's an emotional boost that education gives to service members and CLEP plays an important role. Suddenly young service members realized that they had a year of college under their belts and this long journey that they thought was ahead of them had been reduced by 25 percent, maybe more. That provides a new self-confidence."

The DANTES testing program provides another benefit as well. Dr. Cropsey adds, "This year through credit-by-exam programs, we're saving in the neighborhood of $40 million ... which would have ordinarily been spent on tuition assistance to pay for courses." CLEP is the credit-by-exam program most widely used by service members.

DANTES also offers support materials for counselors. Visit the DANTES website to learn more about the agency.

	Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) DANTES works closely with SOC (Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges), an organization created in 1972 to provide educational opportunities to service members. Today, SOC is a consortium of more than 1,800 colleges and universities. For more information about SOC, including how to join, visit www.soc.aascu.org.

Military Advanced Education, a publication of KMI Media Group, has announced the selections for its second annual Top Military-Friendly Colleges and Universities list. Honorees were selected by an independent panel of judges from the fields of both education and the military. Their selections are based on each institution's favorable policies toward our men and women in uniform. Congratulations to the winners!

Since the beginning of the academic year, CLEP has appointed 18 new members to serve on its test development committees.

More than 600 faculty members from institutions across the country are involved in the CLEP test development and standard-setting processes. The development of each exam is overseen by a standing test development committee consisting of three or four faculty members, each of whom teaches the content covered in the exam. This committee reviews and shapes exam questions and specifications on a regular basis. Committee members are appointed for one-year terms.

CLEP welcomes new committee members for the following exams:

American Literature
Dr. David Carlson, California State University, San Bernardino

Biology
Prof. Douglas C. Ure, Chemeketa Community College

College Algebra
Dr. Donna Flint, South Dakota State University

English Composition
Dr. Janice K. Edgerson, University of Texas at San Antonio

Financial Accounting
Dr. Lynn Clements, Florida Southern College

French Language
Prof. Stuart N. Smith, Austin Community College

History of the United States I and II
Dr. Yanek Mieczkowski, Dowling College

Humanities
Dr. Eugene Greco, Miami Dade College

Human Growth and Development
Dr. Thomas Coyle, University of Texas at San Antonio

Introduction to Educational Psychology
Dr. Diane Finley, Prince George's Community College

Introductory Business Law
Dr. Martha Salzman, University at Buffalo-State University of New York

Introductory Psychology
Dr. Juan Salinas, University of Texas at Austin

Natural Sciences
Dr. Amy Jessen-Marshall, Otterbein College

Principles of Macroeconomics and Microeconomics
Dr. Robert Eisenstadt, University of Louisiana Monroe

Principles of Management
Dr. Jeffrey Lineman, Northwest Nazarene University

Principles of Marketing
Dr. Richard M. Dailey, University of Texas at Arlington

Spanish Language
Dr. Gillian Lord, University of Florida
Dr. Yaw Agawu-Kakraba, Penn State Altoona

See a complete list of the current CLEP test development committee members for each exam.

Many students have asked for more comprehensive study material for CLEP exams. In response, CLEP has expanded the free exam preparation information available to students on its website.

In addition to preparation tips, the new pages include lists of suggested textbooks in the exam disciplines and links to free online archives, courses, and course materials.

Visit Preparing for CLEP to access these new resources.