A G.I. Bill For The 21st Century

In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act" -- the original G.I. Bill -- which ultimately allowed more than eight million combat veterans returning from the battlefields of World War II to receive full college tuition, low-cost mortgages, and living costs. Because of this bill, these veterans served as "the engine of opportunity in the postwar years." Unfortunately, the program FDR signed into law has since been scaled back, and with college tuition and fees across the country skyrocketing, G.I. Bill benefits today fall far short of actual costs. In fact, "the most a veteran can receive is approximately $9,600 a year for four years," which "covers only 60-70% of the average cost of four years at a public college or university, or less than two years at a typical private college." Thus, after surviving combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, returning veterans are having difficulty surviving the financial burdens of higher education. Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) recently wrote that today's G.I. Bill is "a reasonable enlistment incentive for peacetime service, but it is an insufficient reward for wartime service today." Indeed, on his first official day in office in January 2007, Webb introduced Senate Bill 22 -- "a mirror of the World War II G.I. Bill" -- in an effort to bridge the gap between today's G.I. benefits and rising tuitions costs. While Webb's measure has since stalled, a bipartisan Senate coalition including Webb, Hagel, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Sen. John Warner (R-VA) yesterday reintroduced a revised version of S. 22 (H.R. 2707) to advance a "21st Century G.I. Bill."

NEW G.I. BILL BETTER FOR VETS: The new version of the bill "would be available to all members of the military who have served on active duty since September 11, 2001." Reservists and National Guard members -- who now get a fraction of the benefits available to active-duty troops -- will also be included in the bill. Eligible veterans would receive education benefits equaling the highest tuition rate of the most expensive in-state public college or university and provide a monthly stipend for housing determined by geographical area. Beyond that, S. 22 "would create a program in which the government would provide a dollar-for-dollar match to contributions from private educational institutions with higher tuition rates than those covered under the bill." Veterans would also have 15 years to use their educational assistance, compared to 10 years under the current law. The new G.I. bill "is projected to cost about $2.5 billion per year," roughly the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq for one week.

MONEY FOR WAR, NOT VETERANS: In last month's State of the Union address, President Bush proposed expanding the transferability of "unused education benefits to their spouses or children," but the budget he submitted to Congress a week later "included no funding for such an initiative." Moreover, the White House and the Pentagon have so far shown resistance to Webb's bill "out of fear that too many will use it." Robert Clarke, assistant director of accessions policy at the Department of Defense, said "the incentive to serve and leave" may "outweigh the incentive to have them stay." According to Clarke, "it is simply off-base to compare what was offered to World War II veterans to the situation today. There was no concern about retention rates back then." In testimony to Congress last summer, other Defense Department officials said that "the current program for active duty is basically sound and serves its purpose in support of the all-volunteer force. The department finds no need for the kind of sweeping (and expensive) changes offered." Giacomo Mordente III, former president of the National Association of Veterans' Program Administrators, said: "The administration always has an unlimited budget to go to war. But when it comes time to help the people, the casualties of the war, they do whatever they can to limit liability."

NEW G.I. BILL IS A BETTER RECRUITMENT TOOL: The Boston Globe noted that the "promise of an education in return for serving the country is one of the most frequently cited reasons that young men and women join the military." However, "[t]he limited return on the promise is one of the most common sources of bitterness and frustration that emerge in interviews with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans." One returning Iraq veteran cited recruitment ads saying: "Don't worry. College is taken care of." Yet the veteran quickly added, "[I]t is not true." Patrick Campbell of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of American (IAVA) said the $20,000, $30,000, even $40,000 enlistment bonus checks are "not a good investment." The IAVA says the new G.I. Bill "is a practical answer to the military's troop shortage" and that "[r]ather than continuing to spend billions in bonuses for lower-standard enlistees, increasing G.I. Bill benefits would encourage high-aptitude young people to join the military." Indeed, the veterans organization cited "a 1988 Congressional study show[ing] that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending and tax revenue."