# 99036. Commission Proposes Overhaul of GI Bill, Transition Aid

```

By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON -- Imagine serving four years on active duty and then 
getting a full college scholarship -- and $400 a month to live 
on.

That's the reward a congressional commission would like a 
grateful nation to give its men and women in uniform. The 12-
member panel -- all military veterans -- would also like service 
members returning to civilian life to receive subsidized 
temporary health care and other improved veterans benefits. 

The Congressional Commission on Service Members and Veterans 
Transition Assistance conducted a two-year review and issued its 
report to Congress Jan. 14. Panelists proposed major changes to 
the Montgomery GI Bill and the military's transition assistance 
program. The Defense Department will be assessing those 
recommendations in coming weeks, according to a DoD spokesman.

Anthony Principi, commission chairman and former head of the 
Department of Veterans Affairs, said the panel's review of 
veterans' benefits was the most comprehensive since President 
Eisenhower asked Gen. Omar Bradley to study veterans' needs in 
the 1950s.

Congress set up the commission in 1996 to review benefits and 
services available to active duty members and veterans, Principi 
said. It also asked the panel to review relationships among 
federal agencies administering the programs to determine if 
consolidating program management would improve effectiveness.

He said a review was needed to reflect changes since the 
original GI Bill became law in 1944 and subsequent veterans 
legislation was passed in the 1980s. "We've seen dramatic 
changes in the size and makeup of our military," Principi said. 
"Our economy has shifted from heavy industry to service and 
technology. Health care has changed in our country rather 
dramatically."

The commission visited over 40 military installations around the 
world, talking to thousands of service members and family 
members, the chairman said. The panelists also held numerous 
hearings and meetings with government policy makers, employers 
and military and veterans service organizations. "We wanted to 
make sure we got it right for the 21st century," Principi said. 

The panel learned health care, employment and education are 
foremost on service members' minds. "Almost 60 percent of the 
force today is married," he said. "Many have children. There are 
a relatively large number of single parents. As they leave the 
military, their concern is for health care. What do I do until I 
get that first job? How do I provide health care coverage for 
myself and my children?" 

And finding civilian jobs is not easy for returning veterans, 
according to the panel. Despite the fact that recently 
discharged service members are trained, skilled, disciplined, 
dedicated and drug-free, Principi said, almost 20 percent of 
those aged 20 to 24 are unemployed -- a rate higher than their 
nonveteran counterparts.

"We found that to be totally unacceptable," he said. "This 
cohort of people spent four, eight, 12 years in the military -- 
whatever it might be -- and now leaving the service should have 
a higher employment rate. Instead, service members have 
difficulty finding suitable employment. 

"We spend an awful lot of money in this country -- almost $200 
million a year through the Department of Labor -- assisting 
these young men and women to get jobs. Obviously, it's not 
working and the system needs to be reformed immediately," he 
said.

If employment is the door to success for transition, Principi 
noted, then clearly education is the key to that door. 
"Education is the most important benefit that we can provide to 
active duty people in this high-technology, information age if 
they want to get good jobs," he said. 

The panelists ran into some hard truths when they explored 
veterans education benefits, he said. Under the current program, 
service members contribute $1,200 of their first year's pay to 
enroll in the Montgomery GI Bill. Principi said about half of 
those who contribute fail to use their benefits. "That needs to 
change," the chairman said.

The commission looked at why service members forgo their 
benefits. "The monthly stipend is insufficient to allow them to 
go to school," Principi said. The cost of a good education has 
risen dramatically since the Montgomery GI Bill became law in 
1984, he said, and the nature of education has changed. 

"Young people can go to a computer program or a network 
engineering course that may be six months or 12 months in 
length. That compressed and accelerated course of education 
costs a good deal of money, yet under the current structure of 
the GI Bill, veterans only get so much per month. It's simply 
not workable," he said.

While many young people cite education as the reason they join 
the military, the commission found that increasingly more of 
them see the military as a detour rather than as a route to 
college. 

"That's not hard to understand," Principi said. "With Pell 
Grants and Stafford Loans and state college programs, you really 
have to do little more than breathe to be able to go to college 
in America today. 

"What does that say to young men and women who devote four years 
of their lives, incur the risks and sacrifices inherent in 
military service and yet perhaps are not be able to go to school 
because the benefit is not sufficient? We believe military 
personnel certainly deserve to be treated equally, if not 
better, because of their sacrifices."

The commission recommended Congress pass legislation for the 
government to pay for honorably discharged members with four 
years on active duty to attend any school in America for which 
they qualify. The panelists said the scholarship should cover 
full tuition, fees and books, and provide a $400 monthly 
stipend. The four-year service clock would start on the 
enactment date of the new law; members already on active duty at 
that time would qualify by re-enlisting or extending to satisfy 
the four-year requirement.

This would "truly be a readjustment benefit for military 
personnel," Principi said. "First and foremost, it would allow 
them to go to the best schools in America for which they qualify 
and aspire to. Secondly, it will broaden the military to a far 
greater group of American youth, individuals. High-quality high 
school graduates who are college bound will now see the military 
as a way they can truly be all they can be after four years of 
military service."

The commission also proposed that service members who stay on 
active duty and don't attend college or other schooling be 
allowed to transfer their education benefits to their dependent 
spouse or child. 

For Montgomery GI Bill participants, the commission proposed 
increasing the monthly stipend and providing accelerated 
payments for certain schooling. Principi said he met a young 
service member in Korea who was separating and wanted to go to a 
school that would cost $5,000 for six months. Because his 
Montgomery GI Bill entitlements are parceled monthly, however, 
they'll pay only a small portion of his educational expenses.

"We think that's wrong," he said.

The panel also recommended repealing the $1,200 contribution, 
both for the new GI Bill and the Montgomery version. "So, after 
the date of enactment, service members would no longer have to 
make that $100 a month contribution," Principi said. There'd be 
no refunds of past contributions, but no future payments either.

Along with enhancing recruitment and retention, he noted, these 
proposed changes would impact all of America. "Look at the World 
War II experience and what that GI Bill did. It built modern 
America. It built a generation of great leaders," he said. 
"Those young service members returning from World War II had the 
opportunity to attend the best schools in America."

Today in government, business, unions, media and academia, there 
are fewer and fewer people who've served in the military, he 
said. "[Our] recommendation will allow today's service members 
to go to the best schools in America. It will give them the 
incentive to do well and the aspiration to attend America's 
elite schools."

##END##
```