The Marine Corps is scrapping minimum in-service time requirements for using tuition assistance

Now is the time to start applying for those college classes.

The Corps just announced that it is scrapping minimum time service requirements to use tuition assistance, or TA.

Not only have the time constraints been removed, but Marines who are in the status of “awaiting training” can also start to use TA, according to a recent Marine administrative message posted Monday.

Prior to Monday’s announcement, first-time TA users in the Corps had to wait 18 months, a policy change that just had been implemented in May 2018. The Corps chopped the minimum in service requirement for TA down six months from the previous wait of two years.

“Command approval of TA is contingent upon the command’s anticipated mission requirements and individual Marines’ eligibility to participate in the program,” the new MARADMIN reads.

Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Ronald L. Green hinted changes to the Corps’ professional and military education system were coming at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space exposition in early April 2018.

Green had recently made a trip to Air Force’s Air University located aboard Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama to gauge how the Air Force credentials and educates its airmen.

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Various education incentives and changes to military education have already started to roll out over the past year.

Some of these changes are part of modernization and professionalization of the Corps as the force overhauls its Marines for a fight with near-peer rivals.

The Corps is seeking thinkers on the battlefield, and in the future fight the Marines may need to rely on noncommissioned officers to fill the roles of military officers and commanders.

Some changes have included renaming the Enlisted Professional Military Education Directorate to the College of Enlisted Military Education and adding a week to the resident Sergeants School.

The Corps is also streamlining its curriculum to make translating college credit to civilian universities more palpable.

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