The answer was "Yes!" for hundreds of thousands.

The answer was "Yes!" for hundreds of thousands.

Few people know this, but as a high school senior, I gave serious consideration to the United States Military Academy, a.k.a West Point.  I even went so far as to contact Senator John Glenn’s office in regards to the required nomination.  Being the little civic-minded nerd I was, I had already received my Eagle Scout award and an award from the governor for my volunteer work in the community.  Reality set in when I realized the commitments required post-graduation were daunting and that’s not even to speak of life as a cadet that would be a little more grueling than racking up merit badges.  (I didn’t even consider the Naval Academy because I was and am an awful swimmer.)  So, a free world-class education was not to be my destiny.

I have great respect for those men and women who join the service academies especially when their other options often include far less rigorous and demanding colleges.  (Unlike a Harvard or Stanford, you’ll never hear anyone say, “The hardest part about West Point is getting in!”)  I’ve also found it fascinating the continued role that military persons have on the American university system.  While debate rages over the role of government program in health care, you’re going to find few level-headed people who wouldn’t agree that one of the greatest governmental successes in the history of the United States was the G.I. Bill enacted after World War II.  It allowed for one of the largest class shifts in modern times.  All of sudden, huge numbers of well-traveled and well-lived men–many from working class backgrounds–flooded the campuses of schools around the country.  Even the most elite Ivies found their well-heeled prep-school boys nudged to the side by guys removed from the battlefields of Europe by just years.  It transformed America and arguably created the middle class that would keep us a superpower in the decades to come. A great review of the G.I. Bill can be found here and a small excerpt is below:“To illustrate the profound impact of the G.I. Bill one needs only recite the stark statistics: two years before the war approximately 160,000 U.S. citizens were in college. By 1950, the figure had risen to nearly 500,000. In 1942, veterans accounted for 49 percent of college enrollments.

Yet these stark statistics tell only half the story. The extent of the profound changes had only begun. The HBCUs benefited from the enlargement of the colleges through the parallel Lanham Act (1946) that stabilized the marginal colleges and strengthened the others. Twenty-five research universities existed before the war and 125 afterwards. Before the war, 10 percent of students attended college, and the G.I. Bill led to 51 percent of students being able to attend. Seven million veterans took advantage of education and training, with 2.2 million of them attending college.”

(I should also note that the military’s impact on admissions is not necessarily always rosy.  The much-lamented SAT devolved from an Army test measuring IQ.  By 1944, an arrangement between the Army, Navy, and College Board saw 300,000 people take the test in one day.  Thus was born the modern testing frenzy.  Ay-yi-yi!)

Anyways, today is Veterans Day and in honor of the it, the VA rolled out a new website yesterday to assist veterans and current servicemen and women with the latest incarnation of benefits: http://www.todaysgibill.org/ It’s well-designed and loaded with information.  Having looking at the previous version, this will be a HUGE help to anyone looking to learn more about their well-deserved benefits.

Thanks veterans, today and every day.