On Behalf Of An Ungrateful Nation...

From Inside Higher Ed, a recent article on college costs and veterans who're being shortchanged.

Fifty years from now, today’s soldiers won’t be telling their grandkids that their college bills were taken care of, said Patrick Campbell, legislative director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

Nor, he argued, will they tell them about the $20,000, $30,000, even $40,000 enlistment bonus checks they cashed. “It’s not a good investment,” Campbell said of the military’s spending strategy. Nor does it promote wise investments on the part of those receiving. “What are you going to do” with the money, he asked. “You’re going to buy a flat-screen TV.”

A coalition of veterans’ groups, including IAVA and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, joined Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) on Capitol Hill Wednesday to advocate for a “GI Bill for the 21st Century.” Citing the lagging purchasing power of veterans’ educational benefits relative to increasing college costs – the American Association of State Colleges and Universities estimates that the $9,909 annual benefit for former active duty service members covers only about three-quarters of the average total cost of attendance at public four-year universities ($13,145) — veterans’ groups called for a dramatic re-envisioning of the current Montgomery GI Bill, passed in peacetime.

Get this- the Bush adminstration opposes the increase in educational benefits because they're worried that returning soldiers will, well, actually go to college.

A Department of Defense spokesman said Tuesday that the department’s position on dramatically boosting educational benefits has stayed the same. “The department is not against increasing education benefits,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington. “It’s about how to go about doing it. And the research shows that you have to be very careful about the tipping point of when a recruiting incentive may become a retention disincentive.”

Meanwhile, a VA study shows that veterans are employed less often than their peer groups and have trouble getting good jobs.