GI Bill falling short of college tuition costs

[unhappycamper]

GI Bill falling short of college tuition costs
By Charles M. Sennott
Globe Staff / February 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - Halsey Bernard made it through a tour in Iraq as a machine gunner. The question for him now is will he make it through the University of Massachusetts.

It isn't a question of academics for the 24-year-old Boston resident. It's about money - and about the obligation of a nation to its fighting men and women. Bernard, who served with the Second Battalion Eighth Marines in Nasariyah, Iraq, in 2003, is one of thousands of veterans who have returned from combat service only to find that their GI Bill college benefits fall far short of actual costs.

"What they tell you on TV and what the recruiters tell you when you go to sign up is: 'Don't worry. College is taken care of.' And it is not true," said Bernard. "Today it is a serious financial struggle and bureaucratic struggle and personal struggle to try to go to college after serving in combat."

The original GI Bill provided full tuition, housing, and living costs for some 8 million veterans; for many, it was the engine of opportunity in the postwar years. But, in the mid 1980s, the program was scaled back to a peacetime program that pays a flat sum. Today the most a veteran can receive is approximately $9,600 a year for four years - no matter what college costs.

Now, five years into the Iraq conflict, a movement is gathering steam in Washington to boost the payout of the GI Bill, to provide a true war-time benefit for war- time service. But the effort has run headlong into another reality of an unpopular war: the struggle to sustain an all-volunteer force.


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/02/10/gi_bill_falling_short_of_college_tuition_costs/

[bluescribbler]

1. The "scaling back" actually happened much earlier

I'm a Vietnam Vet. I got out in 1972, and attended UMass from Fall, 1973, until Fall, 1977. At the time, I received only a lup sum, paid monthly while I was enrolled in school. There was a COLA adjustment each year, but the checks never amounted to as much as $300 a month. Granted, Massachusetts had a tuition waiver for Mass veterans who attended Mass public colleges, so UMass was affordable, but had I decided to go to Harvard, or even Northeastern, I don't know if I could have afforded it.

Same old story. Vets get screwed again.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. I don't recall the exact dollar amount, but my GI Bill stuff in 1972 paid my tuition and ......

..... gave me a few extra bucks to live on. My school was private and hardly cheap.