G.I. Bill

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The G.I. Bill, technically the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was an act of the U.S. Congress to provide benefits to America veterans returning to civilian life after military service.^[1] Benefits included helping to pay for returning veterans to finish their schooling, or enroll in new studies at colleges and universities, and helped veterans to acquire home mortgages.^[1] Ten million veterans took advantage of the bill.^[2] 2.5 million veterans took advantage of the Bill's education benefits during the 1946-47 academic year, alone. It was effective in helping many veterans of the 1960s-era Vietnam War in obtaining a college education after their service period ended.

In an article reviewing the impact of the Bill, fifty years after its passage, the New York Times wrote:^[1]

The bill, formally titled the American Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, is credited with elevating a generation of working-class veterans to the middle class. It opened higher education to the masses, fueled a housing boom and turned renters into homeowners through low-interest, no-money-down mortgages."^[1]

However, even though the bill had undergone multiple updates, benefits had been eroded by inflation.^[1] Young veterans, returning to civilian life after service in World War II, were generally able to live on their GI Bill benefits, while they studied, but, by 1994, those benefits were only a modest contributions to a returning veterans education costs.

References[edit]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 William Celis 3d. 50 Years Later, the Value of the G.I. Bill Is Questioned, New York Times, 1994-06-22, p. B7. Retrieved on 2023-10-12.
↑ The G.I. Bill, 50 Years On, New York Times, 1994-06-22, p. A20. Retrieved on 2023-10-12. “And so Americans who never dared dream of attending college joined a flood that crested in 1946-1947, when 2.5 million veterans qualified for $500 or more in annual tuition, plus monthly allowances of $65 for single students, $90 for married. Almost overnight on U.S. campuses, Quonset huts and prefab houses bloomed to accommodate this influx. In a stroke, the legislation kept a demobilizing army from engulfing the labor force, threw open cloistered academic doors and offered energizing plasma to schools of every kind, public or private.”

[nytimes1994-06-22-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 William Celis 3d. 50 Years Later, the Value of the G.I. Bill Is Questioned, New York Times, 1994-06-22, p. B7. Retrieved on 2023-10-12.

[nytimes1994-06-22B-2] The G.I. Bill, 50 Years On, New York Times, 1994-06-22, p. A20. Retrieved on 2023-10-12. “And so Americans who never dared dream of attending college joined a flood that crested in 1946-1947, when 2.5 million veterans qualified for $500 or more in annual tuition, plus monthly allowances of $65 for single students, $90 for married. Almost overnight on U.S. campuses, Quonset huts and prefab houses bloomed to accommodate this influx. In a stroke, the legislation kept a demobilizing army from engulfing the labor force, threw open cloistered academic doors and offered energizing plasma to schools of every kind, public or private.”

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