Airmen misused tuition money

[unhappycamper]

Airmen misused tuition money
By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 22, 2008 7:25:57 EDT

Instead of using tuition assistance to pay for courses related to their Air Force careers, hundreds of airmen and Air Force civilians used the grants to pay for classes in such subjects as real estate, music appreciation and massage therapy.

The bill for classes unrelated to Air Force careers came to about $25 million in 2005, according to an Air Force Audit Agency investigation into how tuition money is spent. That’s about 17 percent of the service’s tuition assistance budget.

The same investigation found that education offices were lax in getting airmen to pay back the Air Force if they failed courses, and that they often didn’t update officer personnel records to show officers had extended their active-duty service commitments in exchange for free tuition.

Potential fixes to the tuition abuses won’t be in place until May at the earliest, the report said.

Air Force Times obtained the audit through a Freedom of Information Act request. The 2007 investigation focused on tuition assistance in 2005.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/03/airforce_tuition_scandal_032208w/