A presentation by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation on Thursday during a VMSDEP task force meeting, convened by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, detailed the mental toll of caregiving for wounded, ill and disabled veterans.
Earlier this year, lawmakers approved controversial changes to the Virginia Military Spouses and Dependents Education Program designed to rein costs — only to roll them back over the summer following public outcry.
Meredith Beck, vice president for government affairs with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, presented key findings from a 2024 Rand report about the caregiver population — including concerns about food insecurity, mental health, economic mobility and youth support.
The number of Americans caring for a wounded, ill or injured service member or veteran has nearly tripled over the past decade, going from 5.5 million in 2014 to 14.3 million in 2024, according to the RAND report.
The estimated annual out-of-pocket costs — and household income lost because of caregiving — is about $13,000 per year.
“Because of their caregiving roles, they are taking an economic hit,” Beck said.
The report also found that 40% of these caregivers look after a child, who often takes on caregiving tasks themselves — impacting their health and well-being.
“I don’t know how anybody could go to school full-time doing that,” task force member Kayla Owen told VPM News.
While the Dole foundation presentation did not make specific recommendations to the taskforce, Owen — who also co-founded the group Friends of VMSDEP — said she hopes the additional context will help inform what is ultimately recommended to lawmakers by the commission.
Owen would like to see the task force consider additional recommendations from members like herself.
One idea she had: Change the program, so it’s credit-based, instead of semester-based, allowing prospective students to take a smaller course load over a longer period of time without losing out on the program’s benefits.
VMSDEP waives up to eight semesters of tuition and fees at Virginia’s public institutions for the spouses and children of veterans severely disabled or killed as a result of their military service.
Right now, the program is limited to eight semesters, regardless of whether a student takes one class or several each semester.
“I just think there should be options and alternatives that meet peoples’ needs directly,” Owen said. “I think that we can make the program even better.”
Caitlin Goodale-Porter, another task force member, said that even traditional students who are in college and also helping as a caregiver could benefit from the program shifting from a semester-based to a credit-based program.
“Even a 19-year-old may have a reason for going part-time,” Goodale-Porter said. “I think we need to be responsive to the population.”
Task force member Kristen Fenty said she hopes the group will be able to weigh in on — and work collaboratively with others — to make suggestions about improving VMSDEP.
She added that any proposed changes that diminish the administration of the program should be “directly aligned with deficits that can be proven by schools.”
According to Justin Brown, associate director with JLARC, VMSDEP’s fiscal impact on colleges and universities “varies depending on the institution” with one factor being the size of the school.
JLARC recently released a report on VMSDEP, which Brown discussed Thursday.
According to the JLARC report, the number of VMSDEP recipients as a percentage of the total student body was about 5% at Old Dominion, Christopher Newport, and Norfolk State universities, and the University of Mary Washington for the 2023-24 academic year.
CNU experienced the highest rate of program growth since 2019; the school's president, William Kelly, told the task force “that cost gets passed along directly” to other students.
He added that he’s “pretty proud of the fact that military moms and dads want to send their dependents to our university.”
Michael Rao, president at VCU, emphasized his strong support of the program and its growth at the school. He said everyone needs to find a way to “make this program work.”
Owen was happy to hear university leaders express support for the VMSDEP program and told VPM News she has another idea she hopes will be part of the policy recommendations for lawmakers. She’d like to see the cost of the program be shared between the universities and the state.
“While many institutions have said that they cannot bear the full cost and they can't bear the full revenue loss, I do think that there is an amount that they could potentially impute,” Owen said. “And so, the question is, what is that amount? And how do we determine what that amount is?”
When questioned about next steps for the task force by VPM News, Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera said the path forward for the group is still being worked out. It still hasn’t been determined whether the task force will produce a separate report or set of policy recommendations in addition to last week’s JLARC report.
Guidera told the group that “our governor shares this commitment to protecting and strengthening this program and this benefit for our military families and for our veterans.”
“We need to find a way that this is a ‘yes, and’ … not an ‘either, or,’” Guidera said.