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Military-Friendly Colleges – Resources for Military & Student Veterans

Updated | Hannah Heine
military friendly colleges

Every college and university wants to appear inclusive and accommodating. That’s how they attract students, even Veteran students.

You’ve likely seen catchphrases like “military-friendly” or “veteran-friendly” featured prominently on websites for any number of universities. But what does “military friendly” school mean, exactly?

College Recon has tackled this “Military Friendly College” question by reviewing similarities between institutions that stake this claim. Our data was compiled using reviews given by former students, and it also contained information presented by the colleges themselves.

What Is a Military-Friendly College?

Our definition of a “Military Friendly College” holds that the School:

  • Is it a Yellow Ribbon School or a state school?
  • Has a veteran student organization or association to provide support and assistance
  • Offers flexible and affordable accommodations for military and veteran students (one example would be accepting credits earned through military service)
  • Has a dedicated military and veteran counselor
  • Has dedicated military and veteran facilities

Use College Recon’s Search Tool to find this and other information about colleges and universities.

Determining Your Career Path and Education Goals

Choosing the right school is a difficult task. On the one hand, you worry about which schools you can get into, and which ones have the program you want to study. On the other hand, you worry about whether or not you can afford the program.

Tough Decisions

Before beginning any journey, you should know where you want to go. The same is true for Careers and Education.

We published an article on How to Determine Your Career and Education Goals, which guides you to answer some tough questions. For example:

    • What do you want to be when you grow up?
    • Do you like the job you’re doing now?
    • Do you have a dream job in mind?
    • What do you most like to do?

For that last question, there are resources available to help you figure out what you like doing. A good example is DANTES Career Assessment Tools.

Once you figure out what it is you want to do for a career, the next step is figuring out what you need to be successful in that career.

    • Do you need a degree?
    • Or a Certification?
    • Or a Licensure?

Answering those questions will inevitably lead to searching for and choosing the best program for your future goals.

Choosing a School

Once you know where you want to go, and you’ve determined which educational stepping stones you’ll need to get there, it’s time to choose a school. 

First, setting SMART education goals will help you stay on course.

Next, determine what challenges you may face while in school, like your current employment, child care, and how long it might take you to finish the program.

Check out College Recon’s 10-Step Guide to Going Back to College to help identify areas you need to consider.

Are you going full-time or part-time? In-person or online only?

These are all important considerations when choosing where to spend the next few years achieving your education goals.

Ultimately, the choice is yours, but getting most information up front will ease the decision-making process. 

You can find and compare online schools using the College Recon School Search tool.

Military-Friendly Colleges Covered by Military Tuition Assistance

There are great programs to help service members and Veterans achieve their education goals. By far, the GI Bill is the most well-known. 

Tuition Assistance (TA) is also a tremendous benefit to those still serving. This program can cover up to 100% of the cost-per-credit hour for your education. Finding schools that are military Tuition Assistance friendly is not hard to do.

Best Online Schools for Military Tuition Assistance

College Recon compiled a list of our selections for the Top 8 Online Schools for Military Tuition Assistance. This is a great starting point for learning about Tuition Assistance and researching some schools that may interest you.

These schools were selected for criteria important to service members and Veteran students:

    • Accreditation
    • Principles of Excellence
    • Graduation Rates
    • Job Placement
    • Program Availability

You should also check out our article covering Military Friendly Colleges Covered by Military Tuition Assistance, which explains TA in more depth. It also provides the following school lists:

Yellow Ribbon Schools

The Yellow Ribbon Program is another program that sounds familiar, but not every military or veteran student knows exactly what it does for them. There are important changes to the program that have happened since the passage of the Forever GI Bill. They include the following as announced at the VA official site:

  • Purple Heart recipients with an honorable discharge can participate in the  Yellow Ribbon program.
  • Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship recipients may also participate in the Yellow Ribbon program.
  • Active duty service members and qualifying spouses using transferred entitlement may participate in the Yellow Ribbon program.

What is the Yellow Ribbon Program?

The Yellow Ribbon Program is designed to cover some or all of the costs above, which the Post-9/11 GI Bill will cover. The GI Bill only covers tuition up to a certain amount, which leaves students at some schools responsible for the rest.

The Yellow Ribbon program helps those students cover more of the costs associated with their education by making their GI Bill go further.

What are Yellow Ribbon Schools?

Yellow Ribbon Schools are those that willingly participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program. They make additional funds available for veteran students to help cover charges above the GI Bill’s limits. Schools can cover up to 50% of the tuition expenses that exceed the annual cap. The VA agrees to match the same amount contributed by the school. In many cases, this covers 100% of a Veteran’s tuition.

Not sure which schools participate in the Yellow Ribbon program? Don’t worry. We’ve compiled a list of Yellow Ribbon Schools at College Recon. You can also use our College Recon Search Tool and select “Yellow Ribbon” as one of your search filters.

College Credit for Military Experience

Based on your career field in the military, the length of your service, and any leadership training you received, you may be eligible to transfer your skills over to some institutions for college credit.

College Credit for Military Experience and Training

There are nearly 1,700 colleges and universities that allow students to translate military experience into college credit.

This is possible due to a partnership between the American College of Education (ACE) and the Department of Defense (DoD). Each organization reviews military training and recommends appropriate credit for its member schools.

This benefits the Veteran student in the following ways:

    • Fewer course requirements
    • Decreased tuition costs
    • More college credits on your transcript

First Steps to Transfer Credits

In order to receive credit for military experience, you must provide the school with a copy of your Joint Services Transcript. This document will contain, at a minimum:

    • Your military course completions
    • Military occupations
    • College-level test scores
    • Other pertinent learning experiences

After you receive your transcripts, could you review them for accuracy? Ensure that none of your training is missing, especially those NCO and Officer schools.

Once you’ve verified your record and that it’s complete, conduct your search for “Military Friendly Schools”. These institutions usually have someone trained to review the Joint Service Transcripts (JST) to maximize your transfer credits.

As a note, just because something is listed on your JST does not mean the school must accept it as credit. Not all schools have the same programs, which means that not all schools can accept every credit available in higher education.

Military-Friendly Colleges – The Definitive List

Multiple Appearances on Different Lists for Military-Friendly Schools

These schools were the only  that finished in the Top 10 of more than one Military Friendly Colleges list.  These same schools appeared the same number of times in the Top 10 when we did this same research a few years back.

*Note: The number in parentheses indicates the number of appearances.

Schools Appearing On More Than One List

These schools all appeared twice on these lists.

  • Brown University
  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Penn State University
  • Rutgers University
  • Stanford University
  • Texas A&M University
  • University of Arizona
  • University of California, Los Angeles
  • University of Chicago
  • University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
  • University of Virginia
  • Yale University

List of Best Schools for Military and Veterans Based on Points

While the above lists show which schools showed up multiple times on all of the lists, we also assigned points so that if a school was ranked higher it would receive more points.  Not all lists provided rankings, rather they just listed the schools they deemed military friendly.  We assigned points based on the schools ranking so that we could give weight to not just appearing on the list but also where they assessed to be versus just showing up.

“Rank” Schools Points
1 University of Southern California 167
2 Georgetown University 135
3 University of Texas – Austin 133
4 University of Michigan – Ann Arbor 129
5 University of Florida 113
6 Columbia University 95
7 Brown University 90
8 Yale University 88
9 Stanford University 87
10 University of Chicago 86
11 Cornell University 82
12 University of Arizona 81
13 University of California, Los Angeles 80
14 Texas A&M 73
15 University of Virginia 71
16 Penn State 67
17 Rutgers University 65
18 Georgia Institute of Technology 62
19 Fisher College 50
20 George Washington University 50
21 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 50
22 University of the Incarnate Word 50
23 Angelo State University 49
24 Syracuse University 49
25 Arizona State University 48
26 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Daytona Beach 48
27 Harvard University 47
28 Quinnipiac University 47
29 University of California, Berkeley 47
30 Appalachian State University 46
31 Dartmouth College 46
32 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Prescott 45
33 Princeton University 45
34 Bowling Green State University 44
35 Vanderbilt University 44
36 Rice University 43
37 University of Nebraska at Omaha 43
38 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill 43
39 Santa Fe College 42
40 The University of New Mexico 41
41 University of Pennsylvania 41
42 Grand Valley State University 40
43 University of California San Diego 40
44 Washington University in St. Louis 40
45 Duke University 39
46 University of Washington Tacoma 39
47 Carnegie Mellon University 38
48 Clemson University 38
49 University of West Florida 36
50 Northern Arizona University 35
51 University of California, Davis 35
52 University of California, Irvine 35
53 University of Rhode Island 34
54 Texas Tech University 33
55 Northwestern University 32
56 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 32
57 University of North Texas 32
58 University of Wisconsin–Madison 32
59 Johns Hopkins University 31
60 University of California, Santa Barbara 30
61 University of Notre Dame 30
62 Ohio State University 29
63 Penn State World Campus 29
64 University of Maryland 28
65 University of Tennessee, Knoxville 28
66 University of Washington 28
67 California State University, San Bernardino 27
68 The University of Southern Mississippi 26
69 Eastern Michigan University 25
70 Purdue University 25
71 University of Georgia 25
72 California State University, San Marcos 24
73 Case Western Reserve University 23
74 Florida State 23
75 University of Nevada, Las Vegas 23
76 Virginia Tech 23
77 William & Mary 23
78 Montana State University Billings 22
79 University of Kansas 21
80 Utah Tech University 20
81 Texas State University 19
82 Fayetteville State University 18
83 Colorado State University 17
84 Stony Brook University 17
85 University of Minnesota – Twin Cities 17
86 Western Illinois University 16
87 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Worldwide 15
88 Michigan State 14
89 North Carolina State 14
90 SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill 14
91 University of Massachusetts 14
92 University of Miami 14
93 National Louis University 13
94 University of St. Thomas, Minnesota 12
95 University of Central Missouri 11
96 Pasadena City College 10
97 University of Maine 9
98 University of Maryland Global Campus 8
99 The University of Texas at San Antonio 7
100 Mercer University 6
101 University of Missouri 5
102 Southwest Virginia Community College 4
103 The University of Toledo 3
104 Western Kentucky University 2
105 North Carolina State University 1

Best Military-Friendly Online Schools

These days, and especially since the pandemic started, online learning has become more mainstream than ever before.

There are pros and cons to each side of the Traditional vs. Online learning environments, so choosing a school and its format are important considerations.

When it comes to online learning, some of the advantages many students appreciate are:

  • Affordability
  • Setting Own Schedule
  • More Degree Options
  • Self-Paced Learning
  • Accelerated Degree Options

The following is a list of schools who 1) accept the GI Bill, 2) are Yellow Ribbon Schools, and 3) accept Tuition Assistance funding:

(Please note, some of the schools listed above may have paid College Recon for promotional consideration)

For more information regarding online schools, check out College Recon’s list of the Best Online Colleges for Military students.

How to Become a Military Veteran-Friendly School

Universities nationwide have noticed a steady increase in military student enrollment over the past decade. More and more Veterans are furthering their education, and in numbers never seen before. 

While some for-profit schools see military students as guaranteed paydays, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) closely monitors and periodically audits institutes of higher learning.

If you are a School Certifying Official (SCO), and you are looking for ways to improve your school’s appeal to the VA and Veterans, read How to Become a Military Veteran Friendly School. This guide points you to all the resources the VA offers for institutes of higher education.

For those School Certifying Officials (SCOs), the VA publishes resources to administer to students using VA benefits to pay for college. Some of these resources are:

Call the VA

If you would rather speak to a person directly, there are numbers to call based on your need:

    • GI Bill Hotline: 888.442.4551 (M-F, 0800-1900 ET)
    • VA Benefits Hotline: 800.827.1000 (M-F, 0800-2100 ET)
    • MyVA411 main information line: 800.698.2411 (24/7)
    • Students outside the US: 1.918.781.5678

More Resources on Military-Friendly Colleges

So far, we’ve covered a lot of information related to Military-Friendly Colleges. The following links will allow you to explore specific topics.

Also, don’t forget to check out the College Recon School Finder to narrow your search based on your specific criteria.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Regarding Military Friendly Schools

How can I find a military-friendly college?

Use resources like College Recon’s Search Tool to find schools that support military and veteran students. Look for Yellow Ribbon Schools, institutions with dedicated veteran services, and those that accept military transfer credits. Researching schools’ support systems and flexible programs is key to finding the right fit.

What is the Yellow Ribbon Program?

The Yellow Ribbon Program helps cover tuition costs beyond those covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Participating schools contribute additional funds to reduce or eliminate veteran students’ out-of-pocket costs. The VA matches the school’s contribution, often covering 100% of tuition.

How can I use military experience for college credit?

Many schools accept Joint Services Transcripts (JST) to translate military experience into college credits. This can reduce the number of courses you need. Check if your prospective school has trained staff to review JSTs and maximize your transfer credit.

 

 

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