Recently, the VA has provided clarification regarding the dual objective policy. According to the new definition from the SCO Handbook, for VA purposes, a dual objective is when an IHL student is concurrently pursuing a degree and an NCD certificate or diploma program, or two NCD certificate or diploma programs.
Over the past several years, PPSC applied the dual objective policy to students who could demonstrate how their two declared programs or a declared program with supplementary classes would meet their “single career goal.” This was part of the original definition and required interpretation.
The current definition and guidance now require us to submit the dual objective program combinations to the SAA for approval and listing on our WEAMs report. With almost 300 individual programs at our school, listing all possible combinations on our WEAMs is unrealistic.
To address this, we decided to pull data from the last several semesters and identify the most common combinations. I used AI (our school is piloting several AI options) to quickly analyze the spreadsheet, after removing PPI, of course.
The following combinations are the most common:
- AAS Nursing Track and Nurse Aide Certificate
- AAS Emergency Medical Technician and Emergency Medical Services Certificate
- AAS Medical Assistant and Medical Coding Certificate
- AAS Culinary Arts and Baking Certificate
- Associate of General Studies and various certificates
- AA Psychology and Phlebotomy Certificate
- AAS Business Management and Medical Office Administration Certificate
- AAS Multimedia Graphic Design and MGD Digital Illustration Certificate
These combinations reflect the diverse interests and career aspirations of our students, particularly in the fields of healthcare, emergency services, culinary arts, and administrative skills. The only surprise was the Psychology and Phlebotomy combination. Curious, but the VA doesn’t require that we provide logic for the combination, so we’ll see how that goes.
We are now in the process of preparing to submit these combinations to the SAA for approval. This proactive measure ensures that these program combinations will be ready for implementation when the changes take effect in January 2026. Our goal is to provide our students with comprehensive and flexible educational pathways that align with their career goals while also keeping the WEAMs approval process manageable.
We are also interested in learning what other schools are currently doing for dual objectives and what their plans are for when the changes happen. Sharing insights and strategies can help us all better prepare and support our students. So, for schools that offer both degrees and certificate programs, how are you planning to manage dual objectives?
