The Army said Friday it will reimburse soldiers who may need to foot the bill for college courses this fall as glitches in the service's tuition-assistance portal have kept hundreds of troops from accessing those funds.
Army IgnitED, which connects soldiers with federal funds to cover the cost of college courses and other credentialing programs, has been plagued by technical difficulties for years. Now, an effort to connect the online portal to the Army's personnel files appears to have created a new slew of problems for troops in the weeks leading up to the fall semester.
The hurdles could force soldiers to postpone their education or to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to move forward with their classes. Some schools may opt to hold off on requiring payment until the Army can make good on its funding.
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Soldiers who opt to pay their tuition out of pocket can request tuition assistance payments through their education centers, Army spokesperson Heather Hagan said Aug. 16.
"Education services officers at the education centers are prepared to support soldiers with these requests," she said.
About 200 help desk tickets related to system access or data accuracy have been filed since Army IgnitED and the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, or IPPS-A, were connected on July 16, Hagan said. That's out of nearly 30,000 tuition assistance and 5,000 credentialing assistance applications processed since the integration, or less than 1%, she said.
The number of troops affected could be higher if others have run into problems but not submitted help desk tickets.
The Army hoped that integrating IPPS-A and Army IgnitED servicewide would streamline the process of applying for tuition assistance by allowing the portal to pull accurate, current personnel data directly from IPPS-A, Hagan explained.
"The integration increases the frequency of Army IgnitED system updates from once a day to multiple times a day, allowing same-day updates to take effect for all soldiers," she said.
But not everyone has reaped the benefits of that change. Some soldiers have taken to social media to complain of missing and incorrect data, that the system is misinterpreting correct orders logged in IPPS-A, and that local offices are confused about how to fix their problems, among other gripes.
Hagan acknowledged that the "main challenge involves ensuring the accuracy of personnel data at the unit level."
"We are working with soldiers to determine the source of their individual problems and to help them resolve them," she said. "We recommend that soldiers and units make sure their individual personnel records are up to date as we work on resolving technical issues as quickly as possible."
The Army IgnitED Facebook page on Aug. 13 informed one commenter, who said he was told he needed to drop an upcoming class because he wasn't able to access the portal or request tuition assistance, that the issue was "in the backlog" but it lacked "an ETA on the fix at this time." The service advised him to submit a retroactive tuition assistance request once he regained access to his account.
Asked how long it might take to quell the problems caused by the technology merger, Hagan said: "The integration of the two systems is currently functioning as designed, and most applications are being processed seamlessly."
Most help desk tickets filed about data discrepancies or account access problems are closed out within 24 to 48 hours, Hagan said.
"Soldiers are encouraged to log in to both their IPPS-A and Army IgnitED accounts and to review them for accuracy," she added.
About 100,000 beneficiaries use the Army's tuition-assistance program each year. The initiative -- seen as a key recruitment and retention tool because it helps reduce the cost of higher education and curb the need for student loans -- offers soldiers up to $250 per semester hour, capped at $4,000 per year.
Troops seeking credentialing assistance to obtain professional certifications, such as commercial driver's licenses or pursue other short-term programs, also use Army IgnitED for financial aid. While 64,000 soldiers have used those funds since the initiative launched in 2020, the service is considering paring the program back to curb its ballooning costs.
"The military is having serious problems with recruiting. So, you're going to cut the benefits for those you want to recruit? It doesn't make any sense," Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee's readiness panel, said on CNN in April.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told House appropriators at an April 10 hearing that the service hadn't made any decisions about the fate of tuition or credentialing assistance.
Army IgnitED replaced its predecessor, GoArmyEd, with a disastrous rollout in 2021. Myriad glitches that made it difficult for soldiers to access their education benefits took two years to fix, catching the attention of congressional lawmakers and putting service leaders on the spot to provide answers.
In December 2021, Congress in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act pressed Army officials to reveal their projection for when Army IgnitED would be fully functional, as well as when troops and schools would be reimbursed for expenses caused by the system's errors. The Army estimated that date would come in late 2023, according to Army Times.
Soldiers have struggled with more of the system's woes this year. In May, ahead of the IPPS-A integration, the service said a glitch was redirecting users to a logout screen when they tried to enter the system.
The same month, the Army said a data feed issue was causing some mandatory information in Army IgnitED accounts -- such as a person's civilian education, job code or their enlistment contract's end date -- to appear blank. The service again pointed soldiers to their local education center for help.
IPPS-A has also been fraught with technical difficulties since its phased launch began in 2019. The system aimed to consolidate the Army's administrative software into one platform but so far has failed to remain reliable for soldiers, plaguing troops with shoddy records management and significant health insurance problems.
Those who are encountering problems with Army IgnitED should contact the help desk at 276-231-0938 or army@bamtech.net.
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