From Service to Credit: The Promise and Pitfalls of JSTs

What happens when learning is recognized—but doesn’t fully move?

In this episode of Transfer Tea, we explore the complexity of Joint Services Transcript (JST) credit through the lens of learning mobility. While JSTs document rigorous military training and occupational expertise, many service members discover that awarded credit doesn’t always translate into meaningful degree progress. Why does this gap exist—and what does it reveal about our systems?

Joined by military and veteran services experts, we examine the difference between credit recognition and credit applicability, the institutional barriers that slow mobility, and the knowledge gaps that impact military-connected learners. Together, we challenge higher education to move beyond awarding credit toward designing systems where learning truly travels with the learner.

 

Host:
Dra. Loida González Utley
Director of Recruitment and Enrollment Services
Texas A&M University- Central Texas



Guests:
Abby Kinch, Ph.D.
Chief of Staff & Vice President of Research
Student Veterans of America

 

Coby Dillard, MA-HSC, CCM
Director of Military and Veterans Affairs
University of Texas at Tyler

 

James Dalton
Director of Military and Veteran Services
Texas A&M University- Central Texas

Transcript

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Hi, you're listening to Transfer Tee, a podcast for the ACR community sponsored by ACR, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Learning mobility asks a simple but powerful question can learning move with the learner? For military connected students, the Joint Services transcript should be one of the clearest answers to that question. It documents learning earned through formal training, technical expertise, and leadership developed in service to our country. And yet for many service members, that learning doesn't fully travel. Credits may be awarded but not applied, policies differ by institution, Advising varies, and too often learners are left navigating a system that was never designed with mobility in mind. Today on Transfer T, we're grounding learning mobility in practice by examining JST credits, its evaluation, its limitations, and the systemic gaps that continue to shape military learners' pathways. We're joined by military and veteran services experts to explore what it really takes to move from credit recognition to true credit mobility. OK, so before we get started, I have 3 very special guests that I'm excited to be chatting with today, and I'm gonna let them introduce themselves. Thanks. Hey, I'm Doctor Abby Kinch. I am the vice president of research at Student Veterans of America, which is a national nonprofit organization, um, with the goal to support, uh, student veterans as well as family members, caregivers. You know, survivors, everyone to through and beyond higher education. I myself have been, I'm an Air Force veteran. I actually enlisted right after September 11th, 2001. Um, and so I was a student veteran myself. Um, I was an SVA chapter leader myself and have been in this space for much longer than I care to admit. Um, this, this topic is, is, um, crazy important to me because I had the benefit of going through, we'll talk about all that, but, um, I, I got the opportunity to contribute to, um, the book that ACro put out last, I think came out last July on this very topic. So I'm excited to share more. Hello. I am Kirby Dillard, the, let's see, director for Military and Veterans Affairs at UT Tyler, um, perpetually stressed doctoral student also at the University of Texas at Tyler. 2 more semesters of coursework and then we're writing, and also the outgoing chair for NASA's Military-connected Knowledge Community. We will be gathering next week in Norfolk, Virginia for our annual symposium on military-connected students, and that will be the End of my time as chair. It's been a very fun two years. I've learned a lot. I've grown a lot, but I am definitely looking at, looking to hand it back over for these last two semesters so I can be like Doctor Kinch when I grow up. Um, student veteran myself, both From a long time ago, while also working in higher ed, been an advisor, been a counselor, and now running my own office, and I actually am responsible for credit evaluations through my office. I've been doing it forever, so looking forward to the conversation. Hi everyone. My name is James Dalton. I'm the director of military and veteran services at Texas A&M Central Texas. Uh, I've kinda like everybody here been doing this forever, um, going on about 9 years now. I'm in a doctoral program myself. I feel the pain, Colby. Um, We'll, we'll get through it eventually, right? There's a light. There's a light at the end, guys. I promise, right? Um, I'm an army veteran. I got out of the military in 2015, uh, went through the credit transfer process, and our office has an aspect of it now. I was an advisor at one point. I was chapter leader with SBA, um, kinda doing it all. Such smart people, such knowledge in this, uh, group. I'm so excited. OK, so let's get to the nitty gritty here. Uh, you know, we've been dedicating this season to learning mobility and one of those great areas for, I, I mean for a lot of us in enrollment management, for me in particular, and James knows this because I, I tell him this all the time, is this JST credit evaluation. that I don't quite understand. And um so I guess my first question for you all is when you think about um Joint Services transcripts, so JSTs, what does it represent to you, not just administratively, but also in terms of like learning more mobility and, and credit portability? Um, for me, when I'm looking at students' JST, I'm specifically trying to figure out what is in there that I can use, not to replace an academic class, but to say this veteran has had this particular training that has been evaluated by a faculty member somewhere that equates to what we're about to teach him again, or what we're about to teach her again. Does that make sense to any of us? That's kind of the question where I start from. And when I'm speaking to faculty, it's always, if that doesn't make sense, Let's figure out how we can award him credit based on the information that we're given, what they, what other faculty have said or taught is taught in this course. And I always lead from, these are your colleagues across the country who are evaluating this. It's not just Kobe saying what he thinks. And if it's something where we've got a direct match, let's give the guy or the girl the credit. And if there's something where it's not, Let's figure out what the difference is, and then if there's a different way that we can accommodate moving this student along, let's try and figure out what that is. There's the JST transcripts, there's the CCAF transcripts, so looking at all of those, looking at their competency descriptions, of course descriptions, trying to compare everything to find the middle ground between. I don't really wanna take students out of your classroom, but I don't want them wasting your time or theirs or anybody's money learning what they already know and in some cases could probably teach. I've got stories, so we may get into them. So every time this, this came up yesterday, uh, in a conversation about, uh, course substitution. Um, and like inconsistencies because who makes a decision, you know, and, and, and that varies by institution. So is there like a national standard for JST evaluation or for applicability of JST credits? So that's so complicated. Um, the short answer is A little bit, yes, but mostly no. So JST recommendations are done by the American Council for Education. Um, so they're, they're the ones that sort of look at the trainings, look at, you know, the, the markers that are supposed to be hit in certain job and, you know, specific job categories, which there's more to that. Um, so by and large, the ACE makes the recommendations on what sort of this Um, training checks off in terms of, you know, um, learner outcomes or in terms of course trans translation or in terms of whatever. The, the, the inconsistency comes even within the same institution, right? So I have the benefit of also being a faculty member and I do look at, you know, course, um, recommendations for classes that I teach and that I've built. We do, faculty members, I'll, I'll speak for all of us. We do tend to be very um protective of our, um, sort of knowledge capital, I guess is how you could put it. And so, I, uh, you get a little wary when you're looking at what someone says is the equivalent of your course, you know, like, yeah, but it's not my course. So, And I think, I think Kobe's, you know, approach is spot on because understanding that it's, you know, our own colleagues from across the country and, and people who look at this and are deeply involved in, um, evaluating the training and the, the career progression and all the things that have been done. it's an important conversation to start with, hey, look, this is legitimate. Um, and again, framing it with, with nobody's trying to take butts out of your seat because that's kind of how we get paid. Um, But on the other end, I wanna take a step back really quickly. I was in the Air Force, so I didn't come out with a JST. I came out with a transcript from the commun from the accredited Community College of the Air Force. And so for me, it's, here's my transcript, it works like every other college transcript. Um, and even then, you know, take what you want from it. But I think that there's, there's sort of a barrier between What translates as college credit from the Air Force, which is much more standardized than what comes out of a JST for every other branch of service. You mentioned that now, I didn't realize that there, there is a difference between JSTs and like formal CCAF transcripts. So what is the biggest difference? What do they, what do they each capture? So we, we know that that CCAF captures academic coursework. What does JST capture? The same. Um, and by and large, it's the same. Yeah, it's, it's, um, all military training. So, you know, anything from basic training to a leadership course at whatever level to, um, you know, medic training to whatever your, whatever your job was, right? So all of the training as well as, um, the JST includes competencies at from within career fields. Um, the thing is, they, they generally, the, the Department of Defense has only asked, um, the American Council for Education to review, um, the career materials for Folks who have obtained the level 3 and above, so there are 4 levels for every career. Um, this is speaking to army, but there are 4 levels for careers, and James, please correct me if I get this wrong because I am just there. I'm just there, so I'm, I'm like this is my book learning, guys. Um, yes, they, they only, they only assess the DOD has only asked them to assess, um, level 3 and above, and at that point. You're uh, an E6. So, you know, for the folks who are E5 and below, the JST means something very different than if you're above because you get a lot more bulk, a lot more potential transfer if you're an E6 and above. But most student vet, the vast majority of student veterans are E4s and E5s, so.-- I'll let you take that-- one. That's exactly right. Yeah, go ahead, James. Oh, no, go ahead. No,-- she's absolutely-- right. The other big difference, like, um, Abby said, CCAF actually went out and got accreditation through Air University. So when I'm working with a security forces veteran and I go to my criminal justice faculty, already off the table is the discussion of Where did you get this from? Now, Sachs has accredited this. Here are the course descriptions. Let's just go through all the course descriptions and figure it out. Whereas all the other services, like we said, it's just a recommendation right now. Naval Community College is still trying to get its accreditation. The Army, the Army graduate institutions are trying to get theirs, but they don't have a similar community college type structure yet. So the biggest thing for me when I'm working with Air Force and I'm going out to advisors, I'm going to faculty, opening line. CCAF is accredited, which kind of removes some of the tension already by, hey, this is a recommendation. Take a look at it and figure out what you'd like to do with it. And I was gonna ask Abby, are we Department of Defense or Department of War this week? I'm tired of keeping up. God, I can't, I can't translate that. I'm so sorry. The, the, I can't say the Dow. Then we're now we're talking about stocks, and I don't know anything about that.-- I'm a social-- scientist. Oh goodness. OK, so I mean that just leads me to ask, it's inevitable at this point. In your experience, how do military learners understand their JSTs before they arrive on campus and what are their expectations? That's the hard part. They really don't. Every time I've talked to a student, it's always, this is my JST. I know these are all the skills and classes I've been to. Now give me credit for it. They look at it as it's almost like it skips the evaluation aspect, and they go right into the applicability aspect. And so they think because this is a transcript, I'm gonna get everything on here and in actuality it's not even the best case scenario for the veteran to get everything on there. Yeah, if, if student, I will say this, I'm gonna give a shout out to the state of North Carolina. Um, if they are going to a public institution in North Carolina, chances are they're actually pretty well informed, um, if they know about this one tool that North Carolina has. So, and, and we're trying to spread it across the country like we're having conversations with state after state, but basically, Um, if you're about to get out, you get your JST, um, you, you're like, yeah, I'm, I'm moving home to North Carolina. I wanna go to UNC Charlotte, but let's see. You can take a picture. I mean, you can upload the PDF, you can do whatever, but you can even take a picture of your JSC and put in or put in your MOS or, or not AFSC but MOS and, uh, and they will. List out, if you go to UNC Greensboro, you're getting these, um, these credits. If you go to Chapel Hill, you're getting these credits. If you go to NC State, you're getting these credits, right? And they will tell you exactly what you're gonna get from that JST because they've systematized how those schools interpret those recommendations just across the board. And it's evaluated all the time, up to date. So students, I mean, they're informed consumers of their own education, which is phenomenal. So you don't get the poor schmuck walking into James's office like, yay, look at all these credits I got. Um, so shout out to North Carolina for what they're doing. I see to North Carolina because uh last season we had Eric and Jamie who started that work in transferee so they're gonna be so excited that you brought up yes. And I'll say I have, I see two scenarios. The first one is, uh, first one is institutional student will send in their JST. They've got 75 credits on their GST. Let's bring them in as upper level. Uh, let's not, because all that stuff's not going to come in. And then the student comes to see me. Hey, I was infantry, and I've got these 120 credits, and I've been told that they count for college. What's your major going to be? I don't want to be a history teacher. Congratulations. Very little of this stuff is going to work. So there's always this surprise on both sides of, hey, congratulations. Thanks for your service. We can't use this. I had one yesterday, and I see a lot of these who want to do nursing. They were medics or corpsmen, and they come in, hey, What credits do I get towards nursing? Absolutely none, because their accreditation does not allow for that. Also with engineers, absolutely none. First, what you did technically is different than learning how the technical, the science behind the technical stuff, and their accreditation also doesn't let you do that. So, there's always those explanations of the nuances of what these credits actually mean, not just to the students, but Even to faculty, I'll share the story at some point about a faculty member who asked me for the syllabus for nuclear power school and how that ended. Oh no, Tell him to go to the Secretary of War. More defense, whichever one.-- It's kind of-- a triple-edged sword that, that Kobe's this, which is bizarre, um, because you could show up with your JST and you get nothing. And it's like a, hey, thanks for your service, you get nothing, right? Or you could show up to this overzealous school who's like, yeah, we're gonna give you all credits, all you want. And now, when you have to actually take the classes that you need to, to fulfill your major requirement. Now you've exceeded the um federally regulated number of credit hours, so you don't qualify for federal student aid, so that Pell grant you had last semester is gone or you, there's somewhere in between, but it still sucks because you get a, you get a bunch of credit hours, but now they're all electives and so there, there is a student. I believe he's in Texas, guys, that he's like a mechanical engineering major, um, who was taking a full course load of major classes, so engineering, math, whatever. All 5 all 5 classes, core mechanical engineering. I, once again, I'm a social scientist and would simply perish under that sort of course load, because he wasn't allowed to take, you know, photography, he wasn't allowed to take whatever, because he, those are all just sucked up by his JST. And so his life, he told me he doesn't sleep. Anyway, um, certainly not, but, but like that's, we have to be so thoughtful and unfortunately have to be very individual in how we apply these. It has to be specific to the person. To the um institution. And I think that there's, you know, not, not to be that person, but I think there's some applicability for artificial intelligence in helping to translate these two university-specific cases. More about awarding credit or applying credit? I think it's both. It's award. It's understanding what the credit is, what the credit can do, and then applying it to. The individual student. I always ask the question, what credits best benefit this student in this major at this time? That answer is always different. Sometimes it is a flat out review of their JST or CCAF to figure out what comes in academically. Sometimes it's just, hey, nothing comes in academically, but Texas has this law where if you get to the end of your program and you need the re-elective credits, we're gonna wipe that out based on your GST and it's not even a discussion. So it all kind of depends on what works best for each individual student, but it's a constant, OK, this student gets this, this student doesn't get anything. The student is entitled to like 35 credits based on my review of his GST, but for our accreditation, I can only give him 25, and I've got to explain why that is, so it's always different for everyone. Consistency, and this is a loaded question too cause like uh my question was how much consistency exists across institutions when it comes to the interpretation of age. I know y'all are nodding your head up. It's very individualized. It doesn't even,-- it's not even consistent-- between departments because you're, it's, it's gotta be from an individual faculty member on an individual day looking at they could look at the same thing one semester to the other and make two completely different decisions. I don't know, based on what we had for. Breakfast. I'm not trying to make us all out to be that flippant, but I mean, that's, it's sort of the reality of the conversations that are happening. It gets a lot more treacherous in some states, right? Like in Texas, there are some degrees that don't have electives. So even if you wanted to apply some credit for the student, you couldn't for certain degrees. Exactly.-- And-- in most cases, I tend to just tell the students to look at it as. It's skills based, so they may have these skills, but they're not gonna translate into the academic side, so just hold on to it and use it when they're trying to get jobs. Oh, I'll also add. It's not even consistent between the branches of services when we get the JSTs. For example, Navy recruiter, Marine Corps recruiter, go to basically the same school. Navy recruiters get a public speaking in communications credit. This is great. Marine Corps recruiters get instructional design and sales, and I'm like, OK, I know you know how to do communications very well, but based on what's on your JST I can't touch this. Here you go, Navy. Here's 3 credits towards your, towards your core requirements. So even the services don't have it consistent yet. That's a prime example of where I use a skills-based argument to the student on the back end, cause there's nothing we can do for it right now. Yeah, how does that then, how does, how does that impact the time to degree and the, the student morale when you have to, when you have to tell them? I mean, I'm imagining the students that I, we have to talk to you in recruitment mode, we have to explain that they're, um, that they're, um, applied arts. And sciences degree courses in uh IT are not really academic IT courses and I, I mean I see the frustration in their face, the disappointment really, um, so how does that impact time to degree for students. Uh, I mean, negatively. Um, y'all, I was a Chinese linguist. I went to the Defense Language Institute, learned Chinese, passed the, um, the DLPT, and I got to Florida State and had to take Chinese 12, and 3. It sucks. Like, and I was in the Air Force. Like my, my transcript should have been legit. It just, it's kind of how it works. And so I mean it, it, it, it is detrimental to the, um, progression of, and it's a waste of money. Like I was getting grades in a language I already spoke. It's absurd. Um, and I, I'd like to poke fun at myself for it, but, you know, I, it could have saved me two semesters to not have to do that. It was entirely pointless. Now, I will say, That because of those extra two semesters, I was able to, to do a host of other opportunities, right? Plus my GPA was phenomenal. Um, so, you know, there are, there are some benefits, and it's, uh, you know, when you're speaking to students like that, you know, I, I always sort of like to bring up, hey, you know, you're, you're, because of your experience and because of the skills you acquired that, um, The, the skill-based conversation like James said, you're gonna be head of your class, so like the. There's, it's a, it's a spin game, of course, but no, it's terrible, it's, it is disheartening for students. Abby, I had a very similar situation at a previous school. Um, Army Arabic linguist comes to me and says, hey, I thought I'd get credit for this based on what I did at DLI. Yes, so did I. Why didn't you? Call up. Our evaluators, and they said, yes, we don't do that here. Oh, OK. Told my student, hey. Here is the chair of the languages department. I want you to go to this person, find a, find an Arabic instructor, have a discussion with them in Arabic. Let me know, ask them what they think. Come back and let me know An hour later I get an email from the professor. Yeah, this student is advanced. I'm hiring him and figure out how to give him his credit. OK, faculty, you go do that with, go have that discussion with this person. Y'all work it out. That's all I needed.-- I love he's engaging-- in some espionage. You just facilitated an institutional lep test. I know. I'm, I'm a little bit higher on the chain now, and so it's like, OK, you, you can't really act like that anymore, but sometimes if, like there's some times where I know the senior enlisted, I don't need them taking an intro to leadership course. They can teach it. They could be a TA, move them to some, let's move them along to something that they'll actually benefit from. There, there is though, OK, uh, and for the sake of arguing with Kobe, which he knows I love to do, there, there is the, the, um, The conversation that could be had that, and, and this happens a lot around required leadership classes, particularly like for business students, um, is that, hey, man, ALS, so Airman Leadership School, is not for people in business. It's for people in the Air Force. Um, and I actually just heard this, uh, a while back from, from a student who was, you know, talking about their frustrations around having to take, not having had taken, they hadn't experienced it yet, but being required to take a leadership class because they went through advanced leadership school, I think. And again, the conversation is, there are things that you'll, you'll, you'll know, you will have learned. There are some leadership tools and theories and concepts, whatever, that are somewhat universal, but leadership in business is not leadership in the army. But it's just not. And so the same thing is true sort of for, you know, the, the Arabic and Chinese linguists was, yeah, I could speak Chinese really well and I can read it and write it. Fun fact, I knew how to say intercontinental ballistic missile. I may have never learned how to talk about art, which is important in, you know, becoming approaching fluent in a language. And I'll say on the business end of things, I'll give another story. I had a student who ironically I was stationed with. We have a one credit class here called Build and manage a Successful Career. This is a EA Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer. I went to our management chair and said, I don't think he needs to take this class because of his career. Department chair, who have a great relationship, says, talk to the instructor. I think he'll be fine. OK. Talked to the instructor, who is a military spouse, whose husband was stationed on my same ship before I was born. At that point, I said, you know what, this is my student, go make him a civilian. And that's exactly what she did. And it, and he loved the class, she loved having him in the class. So yeah, to your point, especially the business majors. I love them, God bless them all. But those are the ones who I supervised 3 people as an E3. Where's my leadership credit? Uh, you don't get one. That's not how it works. Yeah. There's an argument to be made that even having them in the class bolsters the class for the other students as well, so they bring in their own experiences. So it actually helps the entire education institution as well. Now the Administrative type who had to take the Microsoft Office class because his institution didn't give him credit for it. That's a whole different story, but of course about leadership courses.-- That's-- pretty wild and, and, and it's different. So it's, it's crazy because, um, you know, it's different not only between branches but now introduce, um. You know, National Guard and reserve folks into the mix who, uh, they're learning, they're in training while in school, and then go back to training while in school. So they're not walking out with a JST all in one. They're sort of piecemealing both as they go, and so it becomes even more complicated. And then the other complication is the, the actual true legitimate, not stolen valor, secret squirrels to where, hey, what did you do in the military? Oh, I was in intelligence. Great, thanks. Not asking any more questions about that, and your faculty aren't going to either, because I'm going to tell them, no, you can't review the syllabus to our school, it's classified.-- I can't even get-- that. So, uh, this faculty tension that it, it clearly exists, um, what does it reveal about how institutions define like valid learning or acceptable learning? go ahead. So it's, it's interesting because I, I just reviewed a transcript, um, and one of the, the classes that they wanted to account for was a class that probably should have, like, in, in all intents and purposes, they, they would have. had what was required of the class, but the class is also like one of those specially coded classes, so it gets bonus points that are required. So like there's the cross-cultural requirement or like all these other different requirements that universities have. So because of that, you know, I had to say no because it didn't satisfy that one special thing. So it doesn't count for that class the way that the class is administered. And I think that's one thing that we should keep in mind is that universities and, and colleges have found very creative ways of ensuring that their graduates walk away with more than just classroom, like the basics, which is awesome for college graduates. It's not awesome when you're trying to evaluate transcripts, um, or, you know, potential college credit. And I think the other thing again is, is just We have to have these conversations amongst faculty, um, to where we realize that, you know, there's more than one way to come into higher education and there's more than one way to come into a classroom. And so, I think, you know, here's where we say representation matters and having uh me as a former student veteran on the faculty, we've had tons of conversations about Our, how courses are approved for credit or even how our internship program works, right? Our, our internship program in, in the, the department that I'm at is super, super hard for people who have to work or have children, you know, student veterans. And so, um, You know, I, yeah, right, so I think the understanding the lived realities of the people whose transcripts we are looking at. Cause I could look at at a JST, it doesn't tell me a ton, but when you consider, you know, that this person served in the United States Marine Corps during a time of conflict, clearly they have experience to get them out of, I don't know, intro to intro to public administration or whatever, because they've sort of done the thing. Um, there's, there's a balance there, and, you know, maybe it has a cross-cultural requirement. Oh, hey, look, they were, you know, deployed for 6 months. Check, check. So it's kind of looking at the whole person and I think that we have to, with faculty have conversations, but a lot of times just because of the mentality that needs to come from other faculty and just because of the way the thing works, there aren't a ton. Of, of veterans who are also faculty. There are some, we're out there, but,-- you-- know. I have come to, I've come to appreciate our faculty here at UT Tyler, when we did our policy here, they were involved in it from the beginning. The chairs were other faculty members, and so, and I wanted them there because again, I'm not making this decision. This is the academic side. You all are making this decision. All I'm, and I tell them all the time, I'm just providing you the information to make a decision. What you do with it at that point is completely up to you. If it's a yes, hey, great. If it's a no. At least tell me why so I can explain it to the student. I had a sim another similar situation. Students had a um communication credit recommendation on his JST took it to the communication faculty and said, hey, what can we do with this? I got a very detailed. Court recommendation says this, our course is this. Here is specifically what it's missing. I had no argument. It's like, OK, this works. If I could get that every single time. If we could get that across the country where it's like, OK, here's a baseline standard of what everything's looking for and somehow coordinate with that with pace and the services, I think this would go a lot easier. I also think it, I will be retired before we get to that. Oh, we found, uh, oh sorry, go ahead, Laura, uh, we found a lot of success looping in our academic advising system into this as well, um, specifically around mapping career plan or degree plans. So like my office isn't sitting here and saying, OK, this is public speaking, but does this student even need public speaking, or can we move this into something else, so. Uh, with our faculty, it's not so much the willingness to accept stuff, it's the awareness behind it. And by looping in academic advising, it helps bolster whatever recommendation we end up sending up. And we've had great success doing it that way. I love that. That's really good. So I'm glad you mentioned that because there are institutions, um, you know, my previous institution when I would work on pathways, I would often send the master list of questions to faculty, and they would say, I don't know, talk to academic advising, you know, or what do they recommend on applicability, and I'm like, you're the expert, but they would lean on, you know, the, um, also the expertise of the academic advisor in regards to applicability of coursework. So I, I appreciate you saying that. Um, James, um, so in thinking about moving towards true mobility, um, what are you seeing that institutions do well when it comes to JST evaluation and applicability? I think the biggest advancement has been the technology behind the ACE military guide, where I can now look to see what another institution has done with this JST. And even if it doesn't completely match up, I can say, hey, other institutions have done this, we have this here. Is it similar? Because then there's not this vague, oh, faculty through ACE have evaluated it. No, these other institutions have done the same thing too, especially if there are peer institutions. Hey, if UT Austin did this. And UTSA did this, and Texas A&M did this. Why is our small school the outlier here? And that's a discussion that, OK, let's at least think through that. And then also, it's allowed us to move the transcripts through an evaluation process quicker. Now there's less paper involved until the very end where it's, yep, put it on their transcript. Everything gets done through the ACE guide. We can, I can track it, I can see what's going on. It moves from me to the advisor to the chair, to the registrar. It's become seamless, whereas that early career, Kobe had to do all of that by paper and it was not fun. Oh. Utilizing uh dynamic forms has really helped us a lot. Not to shout out specific programs, but it, it really helps. I remember starting out when everything was paper. Yeah, things get lost. Um, I would say one big advancement that has helped us a lot is being able to request JSTs. Um, when I started, you had to, like, when I was a student, I had to go get my own JST and bring it into the transfer center and be like, hey, I'm military. I heard I could get credit. Help me out. Now, if we have a student that applies and they say they're military, we can just go look at their JST up. Being able to have that functionality is really helpful. OK, hear me out. And I know this does not answer your question. But imagine, imagine a day where a student applies to either of your institutions. And just by applying to the school, the application system, whether it's, um, you know, the common app or applied taxes or the institution, whatever. It, it is data matched through, um, the APIs at the VA. Um, so you get veteran status, you get benefits eligibility, and, and you get recommended course transfer. At the point of application. Right? So now, when, when you have admitted this student, which you should, cause let's face it, student veterans are awesome, when you've admitted this student, um, you've got, you can start the ball rolling on this before they even set foot on campus. So we can create systems that sort of answer these questions. Ahead of, or, or sort of in tandem with their first, their orientation and their first meeting with their academic advisor. So their academic advisor comes equipped um with potential, potential courses and we're not having to request the JST. It just comes along with all of that veteran information. Anyway, that's what I'm trying to work on. You did answer my question. I just didn't have a chance to ask it before you answered it, because my question was going to be, if JST Credit were designed today from a learner-first mobility lens, what would be different, and you answered it. Yeah, I mean, that's, so it's the, it's the whole veteran invisibility until they're not, and when they become visible, it's usually at the point of crisis or or needing, I don't wanna say needing something cause that sounds terrible, but like needing a JST review, which is kind of a big thing. But if we can make them visible from the start and have all of these things going for them from the start, you know, it, it, Kobe and James have a lot lighter lift because these things aren't all of a sudden coming at them with a sense of urgency. at that point will be grumpy faculty members saying, well,-- back in my day we didn't have-- this. Yeah, I appreciate grumpy faculty members. Hey, I am a grumpy faculty member. You are not grumpy. Anything else that you wanna add James or Kobe to that question. If they were designed today, what, what would be different? I mean, I know Abby mentioned like the perfect scenario. That's perfect. Yeah, that is perfect. That is perfect. Like that would make, that would have made so many things that I have seen throughout the years avoidable. This discussion's not necessary. It would have been done when the student walked in the door. And, you know, it goes something to, it says something to, about the student's sense of agency. Go out and shop schools. If you're going to get a better answer from another school, and I Remind me, you're in, you're in the registrar's office? No, I'm in recruitment. Oh, you're not gonna like this. All the time. Go ahead and shop schools if you get a better answer somewhere else. That's where you need to go. I always say, hey, yes, retention is my job. Recruitment is not. At the end of the day, I want you to have the best use of your benefit. If that's here, great. If we give you more credits, great. If A&M Central Texas gives you more credits, I am happy to put you on an email with James, and he'll take care of you from there. Hey, feel free to put anybody on an email to me. OK, hear me out. Oh, go ahead. No, James, you go ahead. Uh, apart from the beautiful scenario that Abby painted, which everybody should do, full stop, don't even worry about what I'm gonna say, but A simple thing that would help us at like our institution would be looping in the transfer clearing house. Mhm, because institutions can just pull data on students when they move easily. They can get their, their transcripts, they can get their GPAs, they can get all this stuff. I can tell if a student left our institution and moved to another institution, but all that veteran stuff isn't on there. If we could even just get that as a smaller step, that would be awesome. And I'll throw in one more thing real quick. Can we please exempt the CCAF credits from the 150% rule because I'm tired of doing the waiver that's going to get approved in the first place. Sorry. Oh yeah, yeah, um, OK, I have another, yes, it is. I have another scenario for you. This is my own version of Utopia. So, and this is for recruiters, right? Um, there are programs across the country, uh, started with Grand Valley State here in Michigan. Fun fact, I'm in Michigan. Um, Nebraska Public System does it, Syracuse does it. The CUNY schools in New York do it. Um, North Carolina is looking at it, but it's called in most Of the cases, it's called the Veteran's Promise. And basically what it says, at least I'll use Grand Valley as a, as an example cause they were the first. If you graduate um from a high school in Michigan, anywhere in Michigan, and you, um, enlist in the United States military, you are guaranteed deferred enrollment to Grand Valley State. Now I'll say this, many, and I don't know the numbers cause the data on veterans is absolutely horrendous, but many veterans will take classes before they leave. They'll either do it because they intended to go to school and then maybe 9/11 happened and so they left, and that's my, my story. Some of them will do it, realize, I am so sick of school right now and they need to do something differently. Some of them will do it, realize it's out of their price range, and then they, you know, join the military for the education benefits. Whatever the reason, there are education credits earned before enlistment. Then there are education credits earned during enlistment through tuition assistance, as well as the potential for the joint service transcript credits. And then when they come home. So what the Veteran Promise can do and has the potential to do is, those credits earned before enlistment, they can be at UT Tyler. I'm picking on you, man. Then, when the student or when the, the service member is in, if they decide to use TA they're talking to an advisor at UT Tyler. They're working with their advisor, they're taking, if, if they offer online Gen ed courses, they're taking those through UT Tyler. Then, um, any sort of training they're going through, they're feeding that stuff directly into Kobe's office so he can do that credit transfer right after it happens. They're building the UT Tyler transcript as this person is going through. Then when they get out, we already know they're going to UT Tyler cause they've been going to UT Tyler, and so we don't have credit transfer issues. So when it comes to, when it comes to service members and veterans, I think that The, the recruiting conversation we have a lot is, you know, I'd love to recruit veterans, tell me how to recruit veterans, and we can talk about that, but honestly, recruit high school students cause you already know how to do it. And even if you don't have a program like Veteran Promise, if you engage with high school students, even those who are joining the military, there are ways to keep those students involved in your institution while they're in. And then make sure that they come back home to you because most veterans return to their home of record or their spouse's home of record, cause like 80% of us get married or that's a terrible statistic, don't quote me on that. Like so many of us get married, but we'll go home most of the time is what I'm trying to say. So make sure that they go to your school when they come home. That's my soapbox. Also, a quick plug for um degree completion programs. My bachelor's is interdisciplinary studies. Took a lot of my military credits. Hey, great, this works. And also, Abby, I want to live in your utopia, especially if I can get a doctorate without a dissertation. So if that's, no, absolutely not. Doctorates have dissertations. I will die on. That hill. If I had to do a dissertation, you have to do a dissertation. And in December, James got to see me very stressed out. So through chapter 3 and I'll be happy. Oh no, honestly, you know, if I can get through comps, I'll be happy. My goals are right now. to all the doctoral, uh, candidates, students out there fighting for their life, right, um, so I have one more question. If institutions truly want to honor, um, learning earned in uniform, what commitment needs to happen? They need to learn to, they need to understand the students who are coming to their schools. I mean that's step one.-- That's bare bare-- minimum bare minimum, right?-- The whole thing there's-- a, there's definitely a level of outreach that needs to happen. Uh, we talked about it earlier in the episode where awareness is the, uh, student veterans don't even understand what these credits mean before they get out. Um, we're having conversations at our institution about what that looks like with the base right next to us. Um, so having those early conversations with Like the ed centers on the post, or with service members in general, or even with their families, with service veteran service organizations, any of that kind of stuff. So if education institutions want to honor their service. I would say the biggest step they could take is actually outreaching before they, they come out and say, yes, I wanna come to your institution. Actually put effort into Um, actually educating them, not just in the academic side. You know, early career, Kobe would have had a student who didn't get a specific credit and would go to a faculty member and say, OK, tell me why, tell me what you really feel about veterans if this is what we're doing. Now, I think later, later in life, yes, that could happen. No, you have on boxing gloves. You fight? Of course not. No. Like, now that I'm in a different role in leadership, I think for me the biggest thing is, yes, there's gotta be more outreach on the front end. Yes, we need more standards. But at the end of that, if the faculty aren't involved and don't know what's going on, we can have those first two things and we will still be having the same, we'll do this podcast again in 2037. With the same issues and the same points. So for me it's always get the faculty involved early and reiterating, hey, I'm just providing information. It's not my job to decide. If you want me to decide, everybody gets everything, and then we all get in trouble. So it's your job to decide. But also with, with an increasing just non-traditional student population, student veterans are like the, the tip of the spear. I went to Florida State. We were required to say that at least once a month, um, but student veterans are the tip of the spear, and, and the things that we can learn to do well for veterans, we can learn to do well for all of our students. So like the students who You know, work for several years before coming back to academia. The students who travel for several years and do, you know, either mission work or do, um, I don't know what influencers do, but that stuff, uh, uh, but when they come back to the, the institution, there are things, tangible things that they have learned that are applicable in the classroom enough to earn um college credit. And so I think, you know, when we figure out how to do this right with us, it's gonna be easy to, to do it right for a growing number of students. And from a business case, if you're taking care of your student veterans, You're probably also, whether you know it or not, creating another employee to potentially work at that university. I mean, we all, all three of us came out of Being student veterans. Now working in higher ed, some way, shape, or form. So, you know, at the top of all the other parts of the business case, you could potentially find your replacement and get them out, get them out with their degree, and hey, why don't you come work here? And if they've already had that positive experience, they're more likely to say, hey, I'm all for this. Didn't know it was a career that was available to me, but let's do it, because I've had this school took care of me and now I want that to happen for other veterans as well. Mhm yes. I wanna close because y'all are a fun group. Um, I, I wanna close with a really fun lightning round. So this is, I'm gonna ask a question. We'll go and order Abby, uh, Kobe James, and like first thing that pops to mind, OK, so here it goes. Oh no, uh, yeah, here it's, it's OK. It's gonna be fine. One myth about JSP credit you'd like to retire. Oh, Who that training completion always means competency. And that's on the, that's on, that's on the other side. That's not even on the other folks' side. Yes ma'am.-- So-- we. That your 200 credits do not mean that you're a junior. We still have some work to do to actually sit down to see what's going to move. I appreciate you, Master Chief Petty Officer. Thank you for your service. Please do not come in here and demand credit because that is not how the real world, real world works, and we're gonna have a very long transition discussion about this. Mhm. I mean. They're exactly right. The myth I would say is that the credit crosswalk isn't uh concrete. The, the credits don't, they're not real. Oh, OK. That's a good one. I don't think any of that credits aren't real. Yeah, it's kind of like when you say you have stocks, right? The assets there, but It's not realized yet. Yes, fair. You're not wrong. That's how my brain works.-- Trying to-- explain that you're not wrong though.-- I-- did that actually. It's like stocks, you've invested, but until you can, can take it out tangibly, uh. It's not really there. That's a good one, James. That is, that is poignant, my man. It is. Thank you all. That's lightning. I made that up. Thank you all so very much for being on here in Transport tea, for spilling all of the freshly brewed, uh, and, and sometimes sour tea, um. JSTs, we appreciate your knowledge and the work that you do to, um, help our veteran and military-affiliated populations. Thank you so much. Plus, it's always a blast to see these two. We'll never get invited back. It's OK though. We'll be back. Bye everyone. Bye. Thank you. Learning mobility isn't about adding more credit, it's about ensuring learning can move with purpose, clarity, and integrity. The challenges around JST credit remind us that portability is not automatic. It requires alignment, transparency, and intentional design. As we rethink systems, policies, and pathways. Military learners show us what's possible and where we still have work to do. This is transferee, where learning mobility meets practice, where transfer is more than a process, it's a promise because learning doesn't stop and neither should opportunity.