Maj Gen Robert Worley, Director of Education Services at the VA, here for a live Q&A March 13th at 3pm ET. What questions do you have?

Maj Gen Robert M. Worley II, USAF Retired, thank you for joining us on RallyPoint. For all service members who are considering a transition to civilian life or those who are already in the process of planning for it, what are the most valuable but underutilized education benefits you see that we should all be using more of as a Veteran community?

Thank you for coming to RP Sir. My questions to you are in the IT certifications field. Why can't the veteran be paired with an IT mentor along with his Voc Rehab counselor?. It would make explaining the situation easier to stomach from the counselors perspective why a certain cert is required in the field vs being bean counters pushing college degrees. The old IAT/IAM model helped before, but even that was hard to explain to my counselor after awhile. She was HR not IT. Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) to me is one of the hardest classes to take and at the end, has a mental grinder of a test (six hours long) that most do not pass even on their second and third tries. The instructors even mention that fact in class. If there was an IT mentor the IAT/IAM model would've been a non-issue, and after collaborating on what to take based on the job wanted, he/she again would tell the counselor this is how it is and works. You could end up in that (or another class for the fifth time, but it is counting against your GI Bill. That should also be explained). My second on the certs is, different states allow different certs to be taken and approved by Voc Rehab. This could've changed since my example got his. My next example would be Certified Ethical Hacker or CEH. At the time, CEH was not on the approved list of certs to have, but was in high demand. The school knew this, and rather than pass on the chance to get another certification to the troop, the troop signed up for another certification yet sat in on CEH, passed it, and is now working in the Pentagon. This goes back to having mentors from major industries to interpret and guide troops through based on the type of job they are looking to do rather than having a counselor who is overburdened and might not even have a clue as to what is really needed in a particular field try to use VA regs to tell someone yes or no on a cert.

While I mention IT in this, it's not just an IT thing. It can apply to fields like mechanic to HR. Degree's are important, but when looking at jobs, you don't always see what type of degree is required (it'll usually say degree wanted or so many years experience), but you WILL see what kind of certs are required. Need to change the mindset to support what's needed vs perceived across the spectrum. Thank you again Sir for coming to RP.

Maj Gen Worley. On a 100% Disability rating, its my understanding educational Benefits are available to that Veteran. Do they need to carry a certain amount of credits (full time) or can they do a class here and there. Like an art class? Can they start stop and resume or does it need to be in a continued basis. One fell swoop? Thank you and have an amazing day!