U.S. House passes student veterans bill from Tarrant County area congressman

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill from Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Texas, that seeks to make it easier for people to get information about a government program that helps student veterans.

The bill calls on the Department of Veterans Affairs to report to Congress about the operations and effectiveness of its Veterans Integration to Academic Leadership program, which for 10 years has provided mental health support to student veterans.

This is the first bill Ellzey has introduced as a congressman. His office did not have information about the legislation’s next steps. Ellzey represents most of Arlington and Mansfield and all of Ellis and Navarro counties. He was elected in July in a special runoff election to fill the seat of Ron Wright, who died in February.

The program is operating at 183 colleges nationwide, including five in Texas, providing on-campus clinical care to student veterans.

While the program is generally seen as an effective way to help student veterans with their mental health, some — including Ellzey — say the VA has not been open about how effective the program has been.

The public does not have access to information about the number of veterans served annually, as well as the cost and staffing of the program.

“The VITAL Program works. It’s time that we have the data on how well it works and where it can be improved,” Ellzey said in a statement Tuesday.

The bill would require the VA to report to Congress how effective the program is in addressing student veterans’ mental health needs, lowering student veterans’ suicide risk, helping student veterans reach academic goals and connecting student veterans to needed services. The VA must also provide the number of veterans supported by the program.

The VA would also have to assess the barriers of expanding the program and how it plans to address such barriers. The department must use the information to develop best practices, goals and performance measures for the program.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, is the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. He told the Star-Telegram he had not heard of the bill but supported its premise.

“More transparency is a good thing and helping student veterans is a good thing. So this should be a good thing,” Tester said.

In a statement to the Star-Telegram earlier this month, the VA expressed its opposition to the bill.

Since the VA has supported the “program through guidance on best practices rather than formal policy,” it did not establish “specific performance measures across all locations” that provide support to student veterans,” according to the statement.

With performance measures not uniform across all locations, VA “would have difficulty evaluating outcomes and effectiveness of the program,” according to the statement.

In response to the VA’s opposition, Ellzey told the Star-Telegram this month that “they should be willing to accept this with open arms.”