The New GI Bill: It's a Win-Win Proposition

When I was a youngster in the Midwest in the years after World War II, many people still called Memorial Day "Decoration Day," acknowledging its roots as a national day of mourning for the Union soldiers who had died in the Civil War. After World War I, the day became a time to honor all those who had died in uniform. For the past several years, however, it has been an occasion to remember the men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to think of our obligations to those who are still serving overseas or recovering at home.

Although national support for the wars is as limited today as it was for Vietnam War in the 1960s and 70s, most people acknowledge that the policies that have taken us into the Middle East are not the fault of the men and women in the military. Yet few Americans realize that the young people who are serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan will not receive the kind of assistance that their grandfathers received when they returned from World War II. Educational benefits for the current generation of volunteers, whether they served in the regular military or in the Reserves or National Guard, are seriously inadequate. The original GI Bill covered the full cost of a veteran's education, but today the maximum assistance covers only 60 to 70 percent of average "tuition not room or board" at a public four-year university. In the coming days, Congress will consider a new GI Bill (S 22), sponsored by Sen. James H. Webb, a Democrat of Virginia, that will provide the support veterans deserve.

The idea of providing returning veterans with benefits as both a reward for their service and as a means of enabling them to reintegrate into civilian life dates to the early history of this country. Revolutionary War soldiers received military pensions, land grants, and other forms of care, depending on their service and its location. After the Civil War, Union soldiers (but not, until much later, their Confederate counterparts) received pensions. In anticipation of the large numbers of returning American troops from World War I, the government developed a comprehensive package of veterans benefits that included disability payments, pensions, rehabilitation, and vocational training.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, faced with the prospect of some 15 million returning military personnel from World War II, signed the GI Bill, in 1944.

Formally known as the Serviceman's Readjustment Act, the GI Bill provided tuition, room, and board, as well incidental expenses for books, to any veteran who attended a four-year college or university, a two-year college, or a trade school. The bill, which applied to both women and men and provided benefits regardless of race, was initially opposed by some of the leading educators of the day, who worried that the bill would open up their institutions to unqualified applicants.

Open up the academy is exactly what the bill did, although the veterans proved to be more than qualified. In the first year alone, one million of them used the benefit to attend college. Within a decade, eight million had attended college or vocational school. Colleges and universities across the country saw great expansions of their student bodies and increasing numbers of veterans in their classes. In 1947, at my own institution, Dartmouth College, 60 percent of the members of the incoming class were veterans.

The bill was largely responsible for the development of a new middle class, and it not only helped the returning veterans but also expanded American higher education. The "greatest generation" may well have made its greatest contributions as educated, resourceful, and creative civilians in the 60 years following the end of World War II. Before that, only one in 16 Americans had a college degree, compared with one in 5 by 1970.

Yet despite the overwhelming historical success of educational benefits for veterans, such support for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has, unfortunately, proved to be an unnecessarily complicated matter. Remarkably, Congress allowed the legislation for the new GI bill to sit for a year with no action on it. The three major arguments of those opposed: the expense of adding another entitlement program; Pentagon concerns that re-enlistments might suffer if too many people left the military to pursue higher education; and reservations by some in Congress about providing federal tuition dollars to wealthy institutions.

The estimated cost of the Webb bill is $45-billion in the first 10 years. We spend that much in less than six months in Iraq. Veterans' benefits are a cost of war, and support for them should not be held hostage to re-enlistment targets. While re-enlistments might indeed decline, a new GI Bill could also encourage more young people to sign up for military service.

Indeed, one of the military's greatest problems right now is declining enlistment. A more generous GI Bill would only improve the numbers and quality of enlistees. Access to higher education will give enlisted personnel the opportunity to successfully reintegrate into civilian life and will provide our country with another generation of well-educated citizens.

A few months ago, I spent some time visiting with Senator Webb and two of his Republican counterparts, John W. Warner, of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, discussing the GI Bill. We spent the most time on that third sticking point: the reluctance to give taxpayer dollars to elite, wealthy, private institutions. There is a perception among many people in Congress that colleges like Dartmouth are holding on to endowment dollars while raising tuition at rates beyond those of inflation. That perception is ill-founded, and the GI Bill should not be held up waiting on the resolution of that debate.

The three senators and I discussed a plan under which the GI Bill would provide for tuition payments up to the level of the most expensive public university in the state in which the veteran enrolls. For those who enroll in private institutions or as nonresidents at public institutions where the tuition charge is greater, then the institution and the government will split the difference. That is the good compromise that Senators Webb and Warner introduced last month in the revised legislation.

As I write, the new GI Bill enjoys support from 57 Senators and 275 members of the House. It has been endorsed by virtually every veterans' group and by major higher-education associations. Passage should be assured, but it is not. President Bush has threatened to veto any attempt to add the bill to his $108-billion funding request.

Our campuses are quieter than they were in the Vietnam era, so it might be easier for some people to forget the sacrifices of our Americans in the military. Now is a good time to remember them and to recall the responsibility we share to those who represent us. American colleges and universities should help meet that responsibility by urging Congress and the president to support legislation that will give veterans the educational opportunities that they have more than earned. Maybe this Memorial Day, as we mourn those whose sacrifice is forever, we can thank and invest in those who have survived and now wish to move on with their lives.

James Wright, president of Dartmouth College, served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1957 to 1960. He worked with the American Council on Education to create a national higher-education counseling program for severely wounded U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Comments

[debwarot]

I agree - it should be a no brainer - education (& medical) benefits for anyone who has served our country in the military. Better educated, healthy veterans able to live full lives and continue contributing to society as private citizens. What I cannot understand is why John McCain - perhaps one of the most influential vets in the [political sector -does not support the Webb bill!

[Liberal2]

I don't agree. Our economy is making it impossible for the average person to attend college without a lifelong debt.

Better, and more honorable, is to follow the example of Europe and make university education cost what high school costs the student....nothing. If a football player who doesn't have the brains to pass remedial Phys. Ed. can attend on a full scholarship, why should a chemistry or math major have to do a tour or two in Iraq to get a full scholarship (assuming he or she survives)?

All your GI Bill does is ensure enough desperate post-high schoolers for the current and every future war.

[benzden]

After nearly 8 years of active duty in the US Navy, I used the GI Bill when it was $175.00 and then $275.00 a month to attain both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, respectively. That was one of the best benefits associated with military service and I never had to serve inside a war zone.

Any US Military service member honorably serving inside Iraq, Afghanistan or any other current war zone should have US pay the costs of whatever advanced education they desire. In addition, I would propose exempting them from any and all federal taxes for 10 years for each tour of duty they spend in a war zone. (Let the service member choose when the 10 year period begins.)

Anything less is not SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS - let those who keep "talking about" supporting our troops put up or shut up.

[standard]

Vietnam Era veterans also received education benefits. They weren't exactly generous, but mine helped me to earn a master's degree over two years and launch a career. When I returned to campus for a further degree eight years later, however, I learned that my benefits had been subject to a ten-year limit: the unused balance of the set amount to which I originally had been entitled was gone.

That wasn't a crisis in my life--low cost student loans were plentiful in those days and Federal law allowed mid-career students to lower their subsequent tax burden for several years by income averaging (paying taxes on one's average income over the last five years, rather than on the higher amount of last year's earnings). However, by limiting those benefits in redundant ways (by dollar amount per veteran and also by revoking benefits unused before a deadline), Congress short-changed those who, for whatever reason, didn't use those benefits promptly--but needed them later.

This time, Congress should honor our active duty military personnel by making the education benefits alloted to each veteran as generous as those following World War II and making them available for life. No vet should be forced to use those benefits on an artificial timetable--or lose them permanently.

[kusalarhetoric]

James Wright's article provides a comprehensive overview of the case for providing benefits, but seems to misrepresent history concerning the granting of benefits for previous wars. "The idea of providing returning veterans with benefits . . . dates to the early history of this country," he writes, and then goes on to seemingly praise the government for its foresight in providing benefits to veterans in WWI. He omits reference to Shays' rebellion and the failure of the revolutionary government to pay veterans of the war for Independence. The failure of the government to provide benefits to World War I veterans spurred Walter Waters to organize the American Expeditionary Force, the Bonus Army, in 1932. Although it may seem more persuasive to argue that the government provision of benefits for veterans has been the rule and the situation concerning returning Iraq war veterans the exception, the struggle of veterans for benefits seems to have been an ongoing one.

Although at times awkwardly framed in socialist jargon, a very good history of veterans benefits and the denial thereof can be found at: http://www.isreview.org/issues/55/veterans.shtml

The posting of this comment is not intended to disparage Wright's attempts to secure passage of legislation for veterans benefits. My father, a veteran of WWII, spent the last years of his life in a V.A. nursing home in Rifle, CO, where he was always very satisfied with the level of care he was receiving.

[mamacat]

As Mr. Wright states in the title, the GI Bill would truly be a win-win piece of legislation. Good for the returning veterans, good for the colleges and universities, and also very good for our society. An education at a liberal arts or technical college can help to make more productive, better adjusted citizens.
May I also say that those with a college education are likely to earn considerably more during their lifetimes, which means that in the long term, the national treasury will probably get all the money that it spends with the GI Bill returned to it, with interest.