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Higher ed options for soldiers, veterans expand at Fort Bliss [1]
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Date: 2025-03-18
Army Private 2nd Class Rodrigo Moran is less than a year into his enlistment at Fort Bliss, but he already has looked into the higher education options offered at the military post. He knows that a degree or a credential will benefit him as a soldier and later as a civilian.
Moran, 22, was among nine people who attended a March 10 Army IgnitED meeting to learn about tuition and credentialing assistance at the Fort Bliss Education Center at 2916 Carrington Road. The weekly meetings are conducted in-person and online for soldiers on the west and east sides of the sprawling installation.
The soldier, who grew up in Elkhart, Indiana, about 15 miles east of South Bend, has a few credits from Ivy Tech Community College, but wants to continue his studies in business and economics with a focus on accounting as soon as possible.
While Moran can choose from more than a handful of higher education institutions that offer in-person courses on post, he said it is more likely that he will choose the University of Texas at El Paso or El Paso Community College. EPCC recently restarted offering classes on post.
“I want to be an officer,” said Moran, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist with the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade. A bachelor’s degree is a prerequisite for Officer Candidate School and can help with promotions. “I know (accounting) is a lot of numbers, but I’m willing to do it.”
Among the other institutions that offer in-person, online or hybrid courses on post are Park University, Excelsior University, University of Maryland Global Campus, and eCornell, Cornell University’s online education department. Each offers certifications, as well as graduate and undergraduate degree plans.
Evelyn Foster, Fort Bliss’ supervisory education services specialist, said her center’s mission is to provide access to a wide variety of academic programs that will help students while in the service and later as civilians. (Daniel Perez / El Paso Matters)
Evelyn Foster, Fort Bliss’ supervisory education services specialist, said that as of fall 2024, the post’s higher education institutions enrolled 3,734 Army personnel. There were 2,570 junior enlisted, who are specialists and below, 654 senior enlisted, 335 warrant officers (technical experts who serve as trainers and advisers), and 175 officers.
See Also EPCC reopens Veterans Resource Centers to ease transition to academics EPCC’s new Veterans Resource Centers provide academic resources for military-affiliated students, but the key might be in the staff mostly made up of veterans who can empathize easily with the students in transition.
Courses are open to active-duty military, military veterans, reservists and National Guardsmen, adult family members, Department of Defense and Department of the Army employees and other federal employees. If class space is available, non-military affiliated people may enroll.
Foster said that her center’s mission is to provide access to a wide variety of academic programs that will help soldiers be the best they can be while in the service and after they transition out of it.
The center also can inform soldiers about tuition discounts, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and re-enlistment incentives such as time off for active-duty soldiers to pursue their higher education goals. Additionally, there is a MyCAA, or Military spouse Career Advancement Account, workforce development program that will provide up to $4,000 to military spouses to pursue licenses, certification and associate degrees that will help with employment. There is a $2,000 limit per fiscal year. The Army’s fiscal year starts in October.
Foster said that Fort Bliss restarted a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, with EPCC because that institution offered many prerequisite courses to include science labs that military-affiliated students needed to get into different programs.
Terri Mann, dean of Arts, Communication and Social Science at the El Paso Community College Transmountain campus, said EPCC was excited to renew its agreement to offer in-person classes at Fort Bliss. (Daniel Perez / El Paso Matters)
Terri Mann, dean of arts, communications and social sciences at EPCC’s Transmountain campus, said a new MOU with the post was one of her priorities since she took office in 2022. The college’s previous agreement with the post started in 2014 but lapsed during the pandemic.
Mann said the college would offer two eight-week evening sessions per semester because the shorter sessions seem to work best with a soldier’s schedule. The second set of sessions in art, English, Texas government and U.S. history will start March 24. Each course will need a minimum enrollment of 10 students and have a maximum of 25. She said the courses will be as rigorous as those taught at the other EPCC campuses.
“We’re very excited to reconnect on (post),” Mann said. “Our teachers are excited. They like teaching service members. They show up. They do their homework. They are dedicated. They’re amazing students. They’re just awesome.”
From our archives History project that highlights Latino WWII veterans celebrates milestone The Voces Oral History Center, which included many interviewees with El Paso ties, celebrated its 25th anniversary recently.
EPCC will offer certifications, associate of arts or associate of science degrees in health, education and technical fields.
In-person courses on post provide student soldiers and their dependents with a sense of familiarity and convenience, said Paula Mitchell, EPCC associate vice president of Instruction and Student Success. She said the college will staff its office on post with an adviser, counselor and admissions clerk.
Mitchell, an eight-year veteran of the Army Nurse Corps, said she understood what it takes to be a student soldier. While stationed at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in the late 1970s, she took core nursing graduate courses in the evenings at UTEP, which were offered through UT Austin.
About 62% of student servicemembers and student veterans are first generation college students, according to Military and Veteran Higher Education Statistics for 2025. It also reported that about 33% of veterans earn at least a bachelor’s degree. As a whole across the country, military students account for 6% of undergraduate students and 7% of graduate students as of 2015-16. Additional statistics show that 72% of military-affiliated students earn almost 0.5 higher GPAs than their civilian peers.
Army Reserve Capt. Ava Carter recently earned an online Agile/Scrum Project Management Professional certification through one of the higher education institutions that serves military-affiliated students at Fort Bliss. (Daniel Perez / El Paso Matters)
Army Reserve Capt. Ava Carter, 43, is a social work case manager with one of the branch’s 14 Soldier Recovery Units that helps ill, wounded or injured soldiers transition back to the force. She had been a program manager with the American Red Cross, but left that position because of three back-to-back deployments.
Carter, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature in 2003 and her Master of Social Work four years later from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and her MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management in 2012 from Cleveland State University.
The licensed clinical social worker recently completed an online Agile/Scrum Project Management Professional (PMP) training program through eCornell and paid for it through ArmyIgnitED tuition assistance. She said the PMP training will help her to quickly launch anything from a behavioral health clinic to a headquarters when deployed.
“Even social work organizations need management, and they need administration,” said Carter, who has been in the military for almost seven years. “Now I have both the clinical acumen and the business and the program management application available to me.”
Carter encouraged anyone eligible, especially reservists and junior enlisted, to access the post’s higher education opportunities. For many, the Army is their first job where they learn a skill, and about leadership. She said the post’s education center is a pathway where students can build on that background.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/03/18/college-options-fort-bliss-soldiers-military-veterans-epcc-utep/
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