Marathon Pundit: Congress puts new focus on veterans' education

Monday, May 14, 2007

Congress puts new focus on veterans' education

It appears Robert van der Hooning, the former University of Illinois associate dean I've written about on Marathon Pundit a few times, isn't the only one keeping a close eye on the challenges of veteran's education.

An excerpt from today's Insider Higher Ed:

Given the growing gap between G.I. Bill benefits and rising college tuitions, and the growing sentiment that the troops need to come home sooner rather than later, it’s not surprising that Congress is considering action to welcome veterans back with better educational benefits.

"When we are talking about truly honoring service and truly taking care of the people who have served in an affirmative way, I can’t think of a better thing to do than to allow them to reach the level of their talent with the type of educational assistance that will allow them to go to any school that they can get into," Sen. Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, said during a Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs hearing last week. "We're not seeing that today."

Under the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007, sponsored by Webb and described by the senator as "a mirror of the World War II G.I. Bill," members of the military who have spent at least two years on active duty — including those who have served in the Reserve and National Guard — would be eligible for varying levels of educational benefits for up to 36 months based on time served (under the proposed act, at least some of a veteran’s active duty service would have to have fallen after September 11, 2001, to be eligible for the enhanced benefits).

Here's what I wrote about van der Hooning earlier this month:

Van der Hooning realizes the issues of veterans' education, like veterans' health care, are bigger than him, and bigger than his lawsuit with University of Illinois. You might think after getting burned by going to bat for veterans at U of I that he’d run as far away as he could from their cause. But just the opposite, he’s actually spent the past year researching and developing a comprehensive solution to veterans’ education and addressing the shortcomings of the GI Bill and Illinois Veteran Grant. He’s spoken around the country about it and pitched the proposal to Congressmen Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Mark Kirk (R-IL).