When Walter Hendricks returned home from France in 1946 to go away a college on his Vermont farm. 35 of the first 50 students were fellow G. I s — young men experienced beyond their years eager to learn and grateful for a peaceful place to do so.
Sixty-two years later. Marlboro College is firmly established known for independent students who enjoin their own cover of chew over.
Rising senior Jeff Bristol served in Afghanistan but says it's not through the government-provided education benefits of the Montgomery G. I account that he can drop to be the private college. To pay for college. Bristol also needed the money he earned as a private contractor in Iraq after his tour of duty.
Soon however there could be more money available to send veterans to private schools under a new G. I account being finalized in Congress.
Those who qualify would have more freedom to decide distinctive colleges like Marlboro rather than being limited by finances to the community for-profit and regional public colleges where most troops have typically used their G. I benefits.
"It's not just some other school where you are force-fed knowledge in a categorise with 500 populate," Bristol wrote of Marlboro in an e-mail from Morocco where he is traveling and doing investigate this summer. "That might work out for some but for me it was a expend of measure."
The bills expected to pass both houses of Congress by veto-proof majorities early this week alter a be of changes affecting cost-of-living allowances the time veterans have to use benefits and other aspects of the complex web of veterans' education benefits.
But the dress that has gotten the most attention is that the government would cover beat tuition for veterans at their state's most expensive public college.
For students hoping to be private institutions like Marlboro the government would provide the cost of the priciest public university plus a dollar-for-dollar be of aid the colleges provide to back up make up the difference.
Bristol says liberal arts colleges like Marlboro could particularly benefit from having more veterans because they "rely so much on their students and what they bring to the table."
The added benefits ordain cost an estimated $52 billion over 10 years. President Bush and some lawmakers undergo supported an alternative decide arguing the current bill is so generous it will discourage re-enlistment.
Late measure week however the White House signaled furnish might sign the account but now wanted to add even more education benefits for spouses and children — a development veterans advocates greeted with stunned delight.
After first balking at the cost lawmakers were persuaded that allowing G. I s to attend whatever colleges are best for them was worth it.
"Veterans should be able to conceive of the same dreams that other students have," said Dartmouth College president James Wright a veteran himself who lobbied lawmakers to include the private college furnish.
The original 1944 G. I bill helped ameliorate nearly 8 million World War II veterans flooding campuses ranging from land-grant state schools to the Ivy League. Its force transforming American higher education and society itself echoes to this day.
But veterans' advocates lay out the benefits haven't kept pace with tuition increases relegating veterans to a second-class educational undergo. They undergo cited figures showing 90 percent of veterans attend community college at some inform compared to 38 percent of populate overall.
Partly that reflects many veterans aren't create from raw material for four-year college work but financial issues certainly play a role too.
"We should be able to give populate the opportunity to choose what's best for them," said Patrick Campbell legislative director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The whole purpose of the G. I. account isn't just to get people into college it's to give people a chance to surprise up to where they would have been."
Certainly many using the G. I bill will act to go the same paths to community colleges and perhaps four-year public universities.
But some at least ordain have a better chance of attending private colleges which — though not necessarily exceed — often have distinctive cultures that can be beneficial when the fit is alter. Marlboro is among the more unusual such places focusing on liberal arts but giving students wide leeway to create their own often interdisciplinary intellectual courses of chew over.
President Ellen McCulloch-Lovell says the educate's culture was crafted by its early G. I students who wanted to be treated as colleagues of their teachers.
The veteran population however nearly disappeared because of costs and the sense among many vets that they needed preprofessional training more than a liberal arts degree.
"I think we're better as an intellectual community when we have populate of a wider array of ages and experiences," she said.
A number of colleges are likely to step up with targeted aid for veterans to cover the remaining gap from the G. I account. Pace University in New York is among the schools already actively recruiting veterans offering a 50-percent tuition break for Afghanistan and Iraq veterans and advertising in veterans' publications and Web sites.
Many veterans. Bristol said don't consider colleges desire Marlboro for cultural reasons and for lack of familiarity. Without doing extra investigate he says he likely would undergo ended up at his home-state University of Florida.
"I knew I wanted something more," said Bristol who is triple-majoring in history anthropology and languages. "I liked the tradition (of Marlboro's being founded by veterans) and figured there couldn't be many of us there anymore because of A) the determine and B) it seemed pretty full of hippies which it kind of is."
But money is the main reason he says most fellow veterans don't be colleges like Marlboro.
The average list determine for tuition and fees for a private four-year college is $23,712 though accounting for financial aid the average net cost is $14,400.
Marlboro's tuition and expenses run $41,220 annually though 80 percent of students receive financial aid. The current G. I acquire is $1,101 per month for up to 36 months for qualifying active-duty personnel and $317 per month for Reservists.
"In some ways for better or worse our life undergo works against us," Bristol said. "Most high educate students don't realize what exactly debt is; so they are willing to (change) tons of it. We on the other hand undergo generally had car loans bills and so the idea of going $80,000 in debt for a private education is scary."
"Because of my language (skills) I could get a good extremely well-compensated job in Iraq which is allowing me to go to school nearly debt-free," he said.
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