Iraq war veteran Mikel Spencer has a Bronze Star, a bachelor’s degree and a $5,000 tab for an education that was supposed to be free.
James Kinsey, who also served in Iraq, said he recently faced a $19,000 bill after Pima Community College wrongly labeled him a dropout.
The former soldiers have been mired in red tape and red ink over PCC’s past failures to keep proper records for students who received veterans’ education benefits. As a result, some veterans were told they owe the federal government thousands of dollars.
Months after the school pledged to make things right for those affected, the veterans say PCC provided little help and left them on their own to fight off federal debt collection.
“I felt like a dog chasing its tail,” said Kinsey, 27, now a graduate student in international security with a 4.0 grade-point average at the University of Arizona. He attended PCC from 2010 to 2012.
So did Spencer, 47, who works at Tucson’s veterans hospital and graduated last year from Northern Arizona University with a 3.8 grade-point average.
The two don’t know each other and separately contacted the Arizona Daily Star about their cases.
Both say the college treated them poorly and gave questionable advice when they sought help.
“Hundreds of veteran students have come through your doors under the premise of a free education and you took us for a ride,” Spencer said in a recent email to PCC.
PCC officials say they’re doing their best to straighten out a complicated situation.
“I wish I could wave a magic wand and make this go away. Unfortunately it’s not that simple,” said Daniel Kester, the college’s new director of veterans services, who inherited the problems when he started work Oct. 1.
If veterans felt shortchanged when they sought help, “then I apologize profusely for that,” said Kester, a senior master sergeant with the Air Force Reserve.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat and say everything is perfect right now because it’s not,” he said. “But I’m giving 150 percent to make sure it gets perfect.”
Spencer and Kinsey are among 400 or so veterans whose records were adjusted by PCC last year after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs found record-keeping errors dating to 2010.
Dozens — the exact number can’t be determined, Kester said — later received bills from the VA seeking repayment of some of their education benefits.
About 50 vets have contacted the college so far, and some cases already have been resolved, Kester said.
PCC has been telling those who receive bills to submit waiver requests to the VA, a process that can involve numerous calls and letters to the federal agency.
Kinsey said he received strange advice from a PCC staffer on how to file a waiver. He was told to make the request package as thick as possible to discourage in-depth scrutiny by the federal agency, he said.
“I was told the VA doesn’t like having to dig through a big pile of papers so they would be more likely to say, ‘Yes’ ” to the waiver, he said.
Fearing harm to his credit rating and future job prospects, Kinsey started making payments on the $19,000 bill before his waiver recently came in and erased the bill. Spencer is still waiting for VA’s ruling on his request.
PCC has promised to cover any bills the VA doesn’t waive if the college was at fault. Since June, when the problem arose, the school has covered one bill for less than $2,000.
Kinsey and Spencer said when they asked about getting their bills covered, college staffers said they’d first have to prove they weren’t to blame, for example, by producing copies of final exams to show they hadn’t dropped out after receiving aid money.
Kinsey called the requests “ridiculous.” He didn’t receive copies of his final exams, only final grades, he said.
Kester said PCC has made huge strides in fixing its record-keeping systems to prevent such problems. A recent follow-up audit by the VA confirmed as much, noting a vast improvement in error rates.
Employees who dispense advice to veterans also have undergone additional training, he added.
This school year, PCC has seen a 20 percent drop in veterans benefit recipients enrolled at the college. The number declined from about 1,500 to 1,190.
