Legion, CollegeRecon team up to help college-bound veterans

Legion, CollegeRecon team up to help college-bound veterans

The American Legion and CollegeRecon today launched a new web page, www.legion.org/collegerecon, that provides resources to help college-bound veterans find the right school.

The page is a joint effort between the Legion and CollegeRecon.com, a website created to connect current and former military personnel with more than 3,000 not-for-profit colleges and universities across the country.

Garrett FitzGerald, president and founder of Home Front Alliance, which created CollegeRecon, said the site was created to fill a void in the marketplace. While there were plenty of firms aimed at helping students find college, they weren’t covering education in an impartial way.

“We created this environment where veterans can search for schools (without the ‘hassle’ of being recruited),” FitzGerald said.

Those using CollegeRecon search the list of schools, create their own profile and then interact with the schools they’re interested in.

“It can be a daunting challenge for veterans to find the right school,” said Paul Dillard, chairman of the Legion’s Veterans Employment and Education Commission. “The American Legion is proud to work with College Recon to provide veterans an efficient tool they can use to navigate the education landscape, and identify local community resources.”

And CollegeRecon sees the Legion as a viable ally.

“I knew that we didn’t want to recreate the wheel and try to go out and get our own membership,” FitzGerald said of the reasoning behind CollegeRecon working with The American Legion. “We wanted to create an innovative and resourceful tool that we could then go out and provide to different veterans service organizations, company websites, even the military itself.”