As Lawmakers Consider G.I. Bill Expansion, Colleges Reach Out to Veterans
In spite of the financial assistance offered by the current G.I. Bill, military veterans face a series of daunting challenges when it comes to getting their
college degree, including administrative hurdles and navigating the often complicated maze of veteran support services, according to an
article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“As Congress Prepares to Expand GI
Bill, Colleges Reach Out to Veterans,” June 9, 2008).
Though 71 percent of veterans use some portion of their G.I. Bill benefits, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, only 6 percent of
veterans exhaust the higher education benefits they’re entitled to.
In an attempt to help rectify this problem, Congress is considering ways to expand the current G.I. Bill to enhance veteran benefits and
remove some of the existing barriers in place for veterans’ trying to obtaining a higher education.
At the same time, educators are looking at other ways to reach out to vets and to make their campuses more friendly to those who have
participated in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. A recent conference in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the American Council on Education, addressed colleges' ideas regarding how to
better meet the needs of their veteran students:
College and university administrators say they have a lot to gain academically and financially from offering increased support services that
help attract veteran students and maintain higher veteran student enrollment numbers. If Congress passes the revised G.I. Bill, which covers
the cost of attending the most expensive public college in a veteran’s state, the veteran population would have the potential to generate
even more tuition dollars for the nation’s colleges.
And as Stephen Weber, president of San Diego State University, told the Chronicle, veteran students typically have better grades,
lower drop-out rates than civilians, and bring “a maturity and discipline to their studies that traditional students sometimes lack.”
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