(HOST) Veteran ABC News correspondent and commentator Bill Seamans enthusiastically supported the drive for a new GI Bill of Rights, but now he says that the resulting program isn’t everything he hoped it would be.
(SEAMANS) I shared our veterans’ elation over the passage of the new G.I. Bill of Rights but after some post elation contemplation I am disappointed. I feel that all the favorable publicity heralding that finally something beyond talk, talk, talk and bumper stickers had been done was fogged by the fact that our new generation of veterans is being short changed. I regret that the new G.I. Bill deprives vets of the same educational opportunities that I and millions of others had after World War Two to benefit from the finest private as well as public higher education in the country.
The original World War Two G.I. Bill of rights which the new bill was supposed to emulate enabled vets to apply to any, and I repeat any, college or university and paid full tuition to whatever institution, public or private, the veteran chose no matter what the cost. Thus the original G.I. Bill opened the doors for working class youth to Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth and the long list of other prestigious private schools.
But the new G.I. Bill limits direct access only to instate public universities however great they may be and creates a financial hurdle to private school entrance. As explained in a letter by New Hampshire’s Senator Judd Gregg to a constituent, which I quote, "This bill would provide service members with 100 percent of tuition costs at a state school or the cost of the most expensive state school tuition if he or she attends a private school. Under the new bill IF the private school agrees to pick up 50 percent of the difference between the state and private school tuition, then the government would cover the remaining cost." – thus explained Senator Gregg. The important word here is IF – what IF the private school is unable to pick up half the difference – as so many excellent smaller private colleges may not be able to. It means that if a vet wants to go to a private college or university he now has to shop for one that can, and is willing, to pay half the difference between a public school’s and the private schools tuition.
It is abundantly clear, therefore, that access to both public and private institutions enabled by the new G.I. Bill of Rights in not equal and fair. It is clear that most new veterans who want to go to a private college but do not have the financial ability to be able to spend time shopping around for a school able and willing to take them in are being discouraged from applying. The problem has raised the concern of the latest issue of the American Legion’s magazine which says that many veterans do not fully understand the education benefit and how it can help them – and that the Legion is working on an effort to provide clarifying information.
But the question of why the new G.I. Bill is so limited remains unanswered.