UPDATE: According to the Virginia Pilot, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Scott Van Buskirk told an audience of about 1,000 sailors at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek that the Navy doesn't plan to cut the program this fiscal year. However, he also told the sailors that the Navy will reduce TA from the current 10o percent coverage to 75 percent in FY2014.
The Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard have all announced they will be suspending future tuition assistance program enrollments. The Army move is likely to affect more than 201,000 soldiers and save the Army $373 million. This amounts to what some in the DoD have referred to as a "rounding error" in the DoD's annual budget.
The Navy has decided to not make the tuition assistance cuts at this time. This is may change at some point in the future.
According to some reports, some in Congress are planning to introduce legislation that would effectively block the services from suspending tuition assistance. The legislation may be introduced sometime this week.
Stay tuned to Military.com for updates and tuition assistance news as it breaks.
Let your elected officials and the DoD know how you feel about suspending TA.
