College Education Benefits for Veterans

Between the start of the school year and Veterans Day, there’s been a lot in the news about improving college education benefits for our veterans and their families. The Post-9/11 GI Bill was launched in August, but it’s gotten off to a rocky start in spite of welcome new features such as the transferability of benefits. The database problems will get fixed, but both funding delays and program loopholes have left veterans in the lurch.

On Veterans Day, four veterans enrolled in online college education programs wrote eloquently in The Huffington Post about their frustration and disappointment with a misguided housing policy in the new GI Bill. Click on the title to read this excellent article:

• New G.I Bill Still Lags Behind the Times, by Eric Baylor, CTR2(SW), John J. Cronin, USMC/RET., Margaret Varela, and Kenneth Wilson

Let’s hope legislation filed recently by Congressfolks Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and Bob Filner of California will close loopholes and make college education benefits more consistent across all the GI Bills. (Download a summary of most recent legislation here.)

The Boston Globe today profiled an organization that can help when the GI Bill program is not enough. The Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund raises money through private donations to provide college education benefits to the children of veterans who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. How the MSLF got started and what it has been able to accomplish is a moving story.