Vets, military at odds over enhanced GI Bill

Daniel Glenn spent nearly seven years in the Army as a communications specialist, qualifying him for federal veterans education benefits.

But for him and many veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his GI Bill benefits come nowhere near covering the real costs of his education.

Even living at home in Chester, Glenn says, the GI Bill is paying only about a third of his cost to attend a private technical college in Northern Virginia.

Glenn, 28, said he makes up the difference with a federal work-study job at Virginia Commonwealth University’s veterans affairs office and student loans.

Reservists and National Guardsmen receive a fraction of the education benefits that an active duty soldier such as Glenn gets.

Congress is considering proposals to increase veterans education benefits, potentially nearly doubling the program’s cost to the taxpayers.

The military, however, worries that better benefits will degrade the services’ warfighting ability by prompting excessive numbers of men and women to leave the services.

Nationally, more than a half-million veterans of military service — including almost 21,000 Virginians — are now using the GI Bill to help pay for their college educations and other training programs.

After World War II, 5.7 million ex-service members took advantage of the original GI Bill’s education and training benefits. An additional 6.1 million veterans used the Vietnam War-era GI Bill to attend college and vocational schools.

In Virginia, according to state figures, GI Bill benefits would at best cover 71 percent of the average total costs for a year at a four-year public college.

The current GI Bill pays veterans of active-duty service a maximum of $1,101 a month for 36 months — four academic years — of schooling.

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a Marine veteran of combat in Vietnam, is leading the charge to give former service members a better shot at getting an education and moving productively back into civilian society, which was the goal of the original World War II GI Bill of Rights. By providing the chance for higher education to millions of veterans, the GI Bill reshaped American society, experts say.

“The history of the GI Bill was that it covered all tuition, books and a monthly [living] stipend,“ Webb said in an interview. With his bill, “we were trying to mirror that.“

Webb’s proposal would cost $2.5 billion to $4 billion a year. The present GI Bill program costs $2.2 billion a year.

Republicans last week, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and with Sen. John McCain of Arizona on board, revealed a plan to enhance the existing Montgomery GI Bill. The Republican proposal is aimed at keeping people in the military, whereas the Webb proposal is aimed at veterans after they finish their military service.

The Pentagon is opposed to Webb’s plan to sweeten the GI Bill. Military brass worry that better post-service benefits would lure men and women to leave the armed forces at a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make recruiting tough.

“The services believe that Senator Webb’s bill will create an unnecessary strain on retention,“ said Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a Defense Department spokesman.

During the draft era, 90 percent of those ending their first term of service left the military, Withington said. “Now, half stay — and their experience and maturity are critical to our contemporary military success.“

The Pentagon doesn’t want to create a veterans education program that works against its efforts to keep good soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors in the all-volunteer force.

Money for education is the No. 1 reason young people join the U.S. military.

“That was my primary motivation for joining the Army, because I knew they would help me go to college,“ said Keia Watkins, 25, an Army veteran from Richmond studying financial technology at Virginia Commonwealth University. So far, she said, her GI Bill benefits have been helpful, though she has still had to borrow $13,000 for her education.

While more than half of the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been National Guardsmen or Reservists, those citizen-soldiers get short shrift from the present program.

Reservists’ and National Guardsmen’s education benefits amount at best to only about a third of what active-duty service members receive under the program.

And veterans education benefits are not an automatic entitlement of service under the Montgomery GI Bill. Service members have to buy into the program with $1,200 to $1,800 of their own money, which they never see again if they fail to use their education benefits.

In Virginia, education officials said, tuition and fees for a year of study averages $7,083 at a four-year public college and $22,184 at a private college.

The State Council on Higher Education in Virginia estimates that, with an average annual cost of room and board of $6,909, the total average cost for a year of undergraduate education at a state four-year college is $13,992.

Navy veteran Dustin Link is a business student at the University of Richmond. His GI Bill benefits run out this month. But because he lost some credits when he transferred to UR, the 27-year-old West Virginian still has another year of college that he’ll have to figure out a way to pay for.

Even with generous financial aid from the university, Link said, “when I do graduate, I’ll probably be in debt $35,000 to $40,000 in school loans.“

Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of “Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream.“

“The World War II veterans had the best deal by far,“ Humes said. “Each generation has gotten less generous about what they do for veterans.“

With less than 1 percent of Americans serving in the military and bearing the burden of fighting the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Humes said, “ought we not give them enough to get through state universities?“

But in an effort to retain experienced and trained soldiers, Marines and airmen, the U.S. armed forces already provide tuition assistance — up to $4,500 a year — toward college degrees for service members “while they’re serving, not just afterwards,“ said the Pentagon’s Withington.

Last year, the military’s popular tuition assistance program financed 805,000 enrollments among the 1.4 million service members, he said.

And, said Sen. Richard Burr, R-S.C., one of the sponsors of the Republicans’ GI Bill amendments, “Our legislation increases the monthly benefit for active duty and reserve personnel, and greatly expands the education benefits available to service members.

“This legislation goes a long way in providing service members with the ability to attend college debt-free and improves one of the best recruiting and retention tools the armed forces have,“ Burr said.

The Republican proposal also allows service members to transfer their education benefits to members of their families, which is the Pentagon’s highest priority for changes to the GI Bill, Withington said.“Taking care of veterans is a cost of war,“ said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who served as an Army infantry officer in Iraq.

“The cost is relatively cheap,“ Rieckhoff said, “compared with what we spend [on the war] in Iraq.“

Peter Bacqué is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.