How Did the GI Bill Transform Education?

1. How did the GI Bill transform higher education?

Although perhaps an unintended consequence, the GI Bill not only transformed higher education, but the entire nation.  When Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, it made education and job training available to over 16 million veterans.  This type of benefit was unheard of.  A college education was thought to be a luxury that only those from wealthy families could enjoy.  Now colleges and universities had to open their doors to middle class students, many of whom had never considered college an option before.  University Trustees had to expand their campuses and programs.  The influx of students advanced the establishment of community colleges that could provide a college transfer program or job training program at the same campus.  It also spurred teachers colleges and gave rise to a growth of the number of college educators.  Once hesitant about admitting veterans, college administrators later commented that the GIs were the best and most dedicated students on campus.  They were older, more experienced and mature, and focused on preparing themselves for better financial opportunities in life.  The GIs were more interested in practical courses like engineering and business and this demand shaped the course of college curriculums in the decades to come.  The GI Bill also gave minorities educational opportunities not available to them in the past, resulting in a more diverse student population.

2. How was the government able to pay for the large amount of veterans attending college and university?

At the end of the war, the government had to revert to a peacetime economy and military expenditures plummeted.  After World War II, America enjoyed an economic boom as it made a successful transition from a war time to a peacetime economy.  The aid program to rebuild the European economy allowed those countries to purchase U.S. goods, further stimulating the economy.  The expense of sending the WW II veterans to college (along with the other benefit the GI bill had to offer) was far less than the cost of the war.  In addition, with a large number of GIs attending college at any one time kept unemployment numbers down.  After veterans graduated from college, because of their education, they were able to obtain higher paying jobs, had more spending money and paid higher taxes.  For every tax dollar the US government spent on veterans, it got back eight.  The upward mobility of GIs enriched the country financially as well as sociologically.

3. Why did the Southern States refuse to grant black veterans the same equal benefits of the GI Bill?

Since GI Bill benefits were administered on the state and local level, southern states with Jim Crow laws still on the books were able to discriminate against black veterans even though under the GI Bill they were entitled to equal benefits.  The separate but equal doctrine required blacks to attend all black colleges and universities.  Because of the large influx of students after WW II, black colleges in the south were quickly filled.  However, this answers how Southern States were able to refuse to grant black veterans the same equal benefits of the GI will.  Why?  The thought that hundreds of thousands of blacks would become educated and compete with whites for professional, middle class jobs most likely was the cause of this continuing discrimination.  It wasn’t until Brown v. the Board of Education broke the chain of “separate but equal.”  That ruling ensured that the federal government would enforce access educational opportunities for blacks heretofore available only to whites.

4. Why do you think this bill only applied to the veterans and not all the other unemployed citizens during the Great Depression?

The bill was enacted to benefit those who fought in WW II and defended the United States.  The Unites States government has always rewarded it veterans to the best of its ability.  After the revolutionary war, veterans received land grants.  After WW I, because of the Great Depression, veterans were not paid their Bonus, a problem that caused protests in Washington D.C.  During the Great Depression, FDR’s New Deal provided as many work projects and aid to the unemployed that the government could afford, but economy was such that it could not provide the level of assistance available after WW II.  By the end of WW II, the American economy was booming and there was no need to extend the GI benefits to the nation as a whole.  The purpose of the GI Bill after WW II was to assist veterans in making the transition from war to peace.  If they flooded the job market, the economy could have been thrown into a recession.  To give veterans job training opportunities ensured not only a more highly qualified employee, but raised professional standards across the country.  And finally, it was a way for America to honor its veterans.  The impact of the bill transformed a generation.