This article has been updated to include additional information from DoD.
A popular military spouse tuition assistance program is back online after a month’s hiatus caused by technical problems.
The My Career Advancement Account program, commonly known as MyCAA, was officially restored at 9 p.m. Tuesday, said Eddy Mentzer, associate director for DoD military family readiness and well-being, in a DoD social media video.
The web address has changed to mycaa.militaryonesource.mil.
“Now that the site is back up, traffic is extremely heavy, and we are encountering no issues as we catch up on the backlog of calls,” said DoD spokeswoman Jessica Maxwell. Officials are working with all spouses to address any issues they may have experienced as a result of the website’s down time, she said.
Officials moved the operation to a new platform, a new server and a new host, Mentzer said. The new setup appears to be stable, he said, and some spouses already have completed their financial assistance paperwork.
“When we look at any type of outage, frankly, it’s not acceptable,” Mentzer said. “We’ll work diligently in the future to make sure these types of circumstances don’t happen.
“It’s probably the worst time of year for something like this to happen, as thousands of military spouses around the world are preparing for the fall semester," Mentzer said.
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There’s one technical issue that spouses should note, Maxwell said. If prompted for a certificate when going to the new website, simply hit “Cancel,” to be taken to the MyCAA website where they can log in to they system. Officials are working to fix that issue.
MyCAA provides a maximum education benefit of $4,000, with an annual fiscal year cap of $2,000. Those eligible for the benefit are civilian spouses of active-duty members in paygrades E-1 to E-5, W-1 and W-2, and O-1 and O-2. Spouses whose service members are on Title 10 orders and who are within those paygrades are also eligible.
The scholarship can be used only to pursue licenses, credentials or associate degrees geared toward assisting spouses in their portable career paths. It doesn’t cover bachelor’s graduate or general-purpose associate degrees, nor can it be used for school-related costs outside tuition, such as books or room and board.
Before requesting financial assistance, spouses must develop an education and training plan detailing the courses or exams they plan to take to get their associate, certificate or credential. Information is available on the MyCAA web portal. Approval of the plan may take up to 14 business days.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
