In June, Congress enacted the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, commonly called the GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century. Supporters claim that it does for current veterans what was done for those who served in World War II.
The new act is a significant piece of legislation. The expansion of educational benefits to veterans should be applauded. But any attempt to equate the economic and social forces that gave rise to the first GI bill and its unforeseen consequences with today’s circumstances will lead to false expectations about the impact of the new version.
The original GI Bill of Rights, the brilliant popular title by which the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 became known, joined the heroic image of GI Joe of World War II with the iconic Bill of Rights. The idea of a tie between military service and educational opportunity was established. Although the benefits available were less generous for veterans of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the rights continued even as America moved to a volunteer army in 1973. A few years later, the Veterans’ Educational Assistance Program of 1976 was enacted. In 1984 a former Mississippi congressman, Gillespie V. (Sonny) Montgomery, revamped the GI Bill, which was designated as permanent and renamed the Montgomery GI Bill in 1987.
In recent years, however, the Montgomery law has failed to provide adequate resources for veterans caught in the upward spiral of tuition and other costs of higher education. With the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and the long and deadly consequences of the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, pressure to remedy deficiencies in the educational benefits available to veterans serving under wartime conditions has grown. In addition, the decline of enlistments as a result of resistance to the Iraq war has resulted in compromises in educational and behavioral qualifications for recruitment.
The new legislation for veterans attempts to deal with those issues. It has been enacted in a very different context than that of its World War II counterpart.
The GI Bill of 1944 was neither a recruitment device nor a result of unbridled generosity on the part of a grateful nation. On the contrary, it was a political response to legitimate fears about the sudden return to civilian life of nearly 16 million veterans, most of whom had been drafted. Before the four years of wartime engagement, America had gone through 12 years of severe depression. Few in the age group of typical conscripted veterans had ever had durable employment opportunities. Only 23 percent of military personnel in World War II had high-school diplomas, and just 3 percent had college degrees. After the fighting ended, in August 1945, the nation faced a massive demobilization of military personnel and a change from a wartime economy to one responsive to neglected civilian needs.
Spurred by the GI bill, 7.8 million veterans took advantage of its educational benefits. About 2.2 million went to college, but millions more received high-school diplomas, vocational education, and on-the-job training. Colleges and universities — then largely small, elite, white, liberal-arts institutions — confronted unprecedented demands for enrollments, housing, and more work-oriented curricula in engineering and business. In 1940 about 1.5 million students were enrolled, and about 180,000 graduated with bachelor’s degrees. Within a decade, enrollments had risen to 2.7 million, representing all races and religions, and graduates numbered more than 400,000.
Eligibility for the GI bill was simple: at least 90 days of service, with an honorable discharge. For that, veterans received up to 48 months of schooling, depending on length of service. The government paid up to $500 per year for tuition and books (even Harvard University did not charge that much), plus living allowances of $50 per month for single veterans and $75 for those who were married. No means tests. No tax credits. No distinctions based on rank or nature of service. You could attend any school or college that would admit you.
One vital caveat: In 1944 America was a racially segregated society, and while black veterans would make substantial headway in joining the middle class, many were unable to overcome numerous barriers to participation in higher education. Discrimination against Jews and Catholics in many colleges and universities, however, virtually disappeared under the GI Bill. Women were largely uninvolved, although an estimated 64,000 out of 350,000 female veterans did enroll in college.
To say that the GI Bill of 1944 was transformative is an understatement. It was revolutionary. It is widely acknowledged to be one of the major tipping points in American history. Colleges and universities multiplied, especially in urban areas. The major shortage of a skilled work force was met with the education of tens of thousands of engineers, accountants, teachers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, and research scientists, who were followed into higher education by their children and grandchildren. Higher education was turned from a hope to an expectation irrespective of age, gender, or social class. Upward mobility became the hallmark of the higher-education enterprise.
The characteristics of the military force today, however, barely resemble those of the generation that served in World War II. The military now numbers about 1.5 million troops on active duty and nearly as many in the various reserves, a far cry from the mobilization of the 1940s. Most enlisted members of the armed forces now already have high-school diplomas, many have college credits or degrees, and almost all officers have graduated from college.
Moreover, opportunities for education while in service are readily available. The Voluntary Education Programs of the Department of Defense and the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, a coalition of 1,800 colleges and universities, allow military personnel to take courses on or near military installations here and abroad and even aboard Navy ships. It is estimated that each year more than 300,000 military personnel, plus family members, enroll in tuition-assisted programs, including on-line courses.
Educational benefits to veterans since World War II have not been designed to avoid a social crisis. Rather, “benefits for service” programs are common and touted by most political candidates: waivers of financial-aid obligations for teaching in underserved areas, for example, and scholarship funds for performance of voluntary or low-paying public-service activities.
For today’s military, educational benefits serve as ways to build and retain a volunteer force. As the prolonged war in Iraq has begun to negatively affect recruitment, more-generous educational benefits have been seen as an incentive to enlistments in the clearly overburdened military forces. A contrary view has been that generous educational opportunities will hurt retention. That issue has been resolved by making it possible for long-serving personnel to transfer their benefits to family members. Full benefits generally require 36 months of service, with family eligibility available for those who serve six years (spouses) or 10 years (children). The family benefit under the 1944 law was limited to the children of those who had died in service or were severely disabled.
The 2008 law is generous, covering full tuition cost at public institutions, plus $1,000 for fees, books, and supplies each year, as well as funds for tutorial assistance and professional-licensing costs. Monthly housing stipends are awarded. Higher prices at private colleges can be met by the government’s paying the top tuition at the veteran’s state university and matching any funds that the college provides.
The GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century is not transformative in a cultural or educational sense, and certainly not revolutionary. The main impact to be watched is what it does for military enlistments, a problem of potentially serious proportions. It will take several years to measure the new law’s influence on college enrollments and resulting career patterns. The military’s emphasis on educational opportunities, combined with colleges’ active attention to veterans’ needs, should have a positive impact.
Given the relatively small size of the military, the abundant educational opportunities available while in service, and the generally high level of educational achievement of current members of the military, the legislation’s effect on four-year colleges is apt to be marginal in the short run. The extent to which future military enlistees are willing to trade three years for a chance to earn a college degree remains to be seen and may well be determined by market forces.
Meanwhile, many veterans have tended to opt for community colleges and for-profit institutions because of convenience and job-related curricula. That trend reflects opportunities not readily available after World War II, when such institutions were not as ubiquitous. Community colleges have represented a significant portion of higher-education enrollments for many years, with options for transfer to four-year institutions. Traditional higher education is still trying to come to grips with the impact of the for-profit sector, but its growth suggests that the new GI Bill will prove helpful to for-profit institutions as well — and we should not ignore the contributions that they, too, can make to veterans and our society.
We need not hold the new law side by side with the original GI bill to appreciate its significance. Any public support for higher education merits a salute. It is not merely an individual benefit or reward, as deserved as that may be, or a gift to colleges and universities, but a needed contribution to the nation. In addition, it will probably improve minority enrollments in higher education because of the substantial number of minority people in the military.
Competing on a world stage in business and in higher education, we face a shortage of the skilled labor necessary for a 21st-century economy. Millions of our citizens need assistance to pursue their education, and military service provides the added experience, maturation, and leadership training that justify further investment in veterans’ education. It is remarkable that in the United States, as we provide for the common defense with a volunteer military force, the major inducement we use to fill the ranks is the promise of an education.
The GI Bill of 1944 enabled the nation to overcome years of instability, helped establish us as a world power, and justified a national commitment to upward mobility for a heterogeneous population. Our current situation may not be as desperate, but the lessons apply and are enhanced by the GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century.
Milton Greenberg is professor emeritus of government at American University, where he has served as provost and interim president. He is the author of The GI Bill: The Law That Changed America (Lickle Publishing, 1997), a companion book to a PBS production.
http://chronicle.com Section: Commentary Volume 54, Issue 46, Page A56