For over 60 years, the GI Bill has helped our servicemen and women pay for college, and in turn, helped employers find the talent they need in the ever-changing workplace. Since its inception, more than 20 million veterans and veterans’ dependents have participated in GI Bill education and training programs.

    Around this time six years ago, I chaired hearings to determine if the GI Bill’s value had deteriorated. Sadly, it had become deficient in many ways so I decided to reform and expand it.

    Established in 1944, the GI Bill has been appropriately credited with helping millions of returning World War II veterans live the American Dream. Before the GI Bill, college and homeownership were goals that many veterans, or non-veterans for that matter, found to be out of their reach. For this reason, it is no surprise that the GI Bill was a popular program from the start. Just three years after it was established, veterans accounted for 49 percent of the nation’s college admissions.

    The popularity of the GI Bill is often recognized as one of the defining factors that led to the creation of the modern middle class. WWII veterans who took advantage of the GI Bill’s education benefits found their earning power to be significantly increased. On top of that, millions also took advantage of the GI Bill's home loan guaranty. The federal government backed over two million home loans for WWII veterans in the first few years of the program alone.

    However, over the years, the program’s benefit rates were not keeping pace with the rising costs of higher education. In light of this, the GI Bill was losing the ability to help veterans to the degree it did when it was created, and the program’s diminished worth led to a drop in the number of participating veterans. 

    Five years ago marks the change in direction for the GI Bill – the point where it moved toward becoming a valuable program again. This came about by passage of a law I authored, the “Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act of 2001,” which authorized the largest increase in GI Bill funding since the program was created. 

    Before the law was enacted, a veteran with three years in the service received about $24,000 for college. The “Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act of 2001,” pushed that to more than $37,000 – a 50% increase over the previous level. 

    Higher education is now within reach again for more of our veterans and service members than it was five years ago. Today, thirty-three percent more veterans and service members are using the benefit. Over 150,000 veterans have taken advantage of the GI Bill’s benefits since the passage of my bill, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) notes, that in recent years, more veterans have participated in the GI Bill than in any other VA program. 

    Had the GI Bill rates remained static, the new generation of heroes returning from the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq would find it extremely difficult to take advantage of the benefit. However, by increasing the GI Bill rates and modernizing the program, we restructured it into real tangible benefit that enables today’s veterans to meet current higher education costs. 

    The heroes of the Greatest Generation were able to start new lives due in a large part to the benefits the GI Bill offered them. Today’s heroes, the brave servicemen and women sacrificing in the Global War on Terror, deserve the same opportunities. On its five year anniversary, we should look at the successes of the “Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act of 2001” as an outline for how we can modernize veterans benefit programs and help these heroes as they embark on a new chapter of life.