The GI Bill opened doors to higher education for many after returning from WWII. However, a segregated America did not offer as many opportunities for African-American veterans.
Formally known as the
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944
, the bill made unprecedented commitments to the nation’s veterans. For instance, it provided federal assistance to veterans in the form of housing and unemployment benefits. But of all the benefits offered through the GI Bill, funding for higher education and job training emerged as the
most popular
.
More than 2 million veterans flocked
to college campuses throughout the country. But even as former service members entered college, not all of them accessed the bill’s benefits in the same way. That’s because white southern politicians designed the distribution of benefits under the GI Bill to
uphold their segregationist beliefs
.
So, while white veterans got into college with relative ease, black service members faced
limited options and outright denial
in their pursuit for educational advancement. This resulted in
uneven outcomes
of the GI Bill’s impact.
When he signed the bill into law,
President Roosevelt assured
that it would give “servicemen and women the opportunity of resuming their education or technical training … not only without tuition charge … but with the right to receive a monthly living allowance while pursuing their studies.” So long as they had served 90 consecutive days in the U.S. Armed Forces and had not received a dishonorable discharge, veterans could have their tuition waived for the institution of their choice and cover their living expenses as they pursued a college degree.
This unparalleled investment in veteran education led to a boom in college enrollment. Around 8 million of the nation’s 16 million veterans took advantage of federal funding for higher education or vocational training,
2 million of whom pursued a college degree within the first five years of the bill’s existence
. Those ex-service members made up nearly half of the nation’s college students by 1947.
Colleges
scrambled to accommodate
all the new veterans. These veterans were
often white men who were slightly older
than the typical college age. They sometimes arrived with wives and families
in tow
and brought a martial discipline to their studies that,
as scholars have noted
, created a cultural clash with traditional civilian students who sometimes were more interested in the life of the party than the life of the mind.
Limited opportunities for black servicemen
Black service members had a different kind of experience. The GI Bill’s race-neutral language had filled the 1 million African American veterans with hope that they, too, could take advantage of federal assistance. Integrated universities and historically black colleges and universities – commonly known as HBCUs – welcomed black veterans and their federal dollars, which led to the
growth of a new black middle class
in the immediate postwar years.
Yet, the underfunding of HBCUs
limited opportunities
for these large numbers of black veterans. Schools like the Tuskegee Institute and Alcorn State lacked government investment in their infrastructure and simply could not accommodate an influx of so many students, whereas well-funded white institutions were more equipped to take in students.
Research has also revealed
that a lack of formal secondary education for black soldiers prior to their service inhibited their paths to colleges and universities.
Mississippi’s connection to the GI Bill goes beyond Rankin’s racist maneuvering. From 1966 to 1997,
G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery
represented the state in Congress and dedicated himself to veterans’ issues. In 1984, he pushed through his signature piece of federal legislation, the
Montgomery GI Bill
, which recommitted the nation to providing for veterans’ education and extended those funds to reserve units and the National Guard. Congress had discontinued the GI Bill after Vietnam. As historian
Jennifer Mittelstadt shows
, Montgomery’s bill subsidized education as a way to boost enlistment in the all-volunteer force that lagged in recruitment during the final years of the Cold War.
This new GI Bill, passed in 2008, has paid around US$100 billion to more than 2 million recipients. Although the
Student Veterans for America
touts the nearly half a million degrees awarded to veterans since 2009, politicians and watchdogs have fought for reforms to the bill to stop predatory, for-profit colleges from targeting veterans.
Recent reports show
that 20% of GI Bill disbursements go to for-profit schools. These institutions hold reputations for notoriously high dropout rates and
disproportionately targeting students of color
, a significant point given the
growing racial and ethnic diversity
of the military.
In August 2017, President Trump signed the
Forever GI Bill
, which committed $3 billion for 10 more years of education funding. As active duty service members and veterans begin to take advantage of these provisions, history provides good reason to be vigilant for the way racism still impacts who receives the most from those benefits.</p>
Joseph Thompson is an assistant professor of History at Mississippi State University. This article is republished from
The Conversation,
an independent, non-profit Boston-based news organization that distributes articles written by academic experts, based on their research.