Vet here, currently in my junior year of a CS major. I personally view the GI Bill as similar to a lot of other affirmative action programs - the people who are

Vet here, currently in my junior year of a CS major. I personally view the GI Bill as similar to a lot of other affirmative action programs - the people who are best-equipped to take advantage of the programs are the least needy. I did a term in the Marines as a radio tech for air traffic control. I did all of it in Yuma, AZ. No deployments, not even a float on a ship. I got out with a job offer in hand to work at Intel as a microscope tech. Intel offers to pay for tuition, but I get $22k in BAH and a book stipend per year on top of free tuition with the GI Bill, so it's a better deal for me to make Uncle Sam pay for it. My SO is a nurse, so she makes good money as well. I'm fulfilling my end of the bargain, I guess; I've kept pretty close to a 4.0 GPA while working full-time. But when John Q. Taxpayer thinks of a veteran going to college on the GI Bill, he probably doesn't think of a POG[1] radio tech whose parents are both affluent college grads. He thinks of some grunt who lived in the dirt and got shot at in Afghanistan and is probably the first person in his family to go to college. The latter tend not to use their benefits at all, use them as another form of welfare like the parent poster mentioned, (take some fluffy bullshit classes and pocket the BAH) or get scammed by some shitty for-profit institution. Result: Those who use the benefits tend to be those who were already going to go to college and do well anyway. Of course, if you threaten to canc the benefits, you're going to get a bunch of very angry veterans and affiliated people who will yell at you for ripping away that poor grunt's chance to be the first kid in his family to go to college. Never mind the fact that the poor grunt got suckered by fucking DeVry or just didn't go at all. [1] Personnel Other than Grunt.