The Montgomery GI Bill

Plenty of Promises, Little Education Money

We've all seen the advertisements, "Join the Army and earn up to $30,000 for college." The ads seem to say that if you join the military college is all but paid for. This recruiting pitch capitalizes on the most basic American Dream, to better oneself through education. It seems too good to be true! As with all other advertising, we need to ask if the military's promises of education money are truth or exaggeration.

Only 35% of recruits who paid into the Montgomery GI Bill have used any of their benefits. As a result, the military has been making a profit on the Montgomery GI Bill! As of 1993, military personnel paid $1.84 billion in non-refundable deposits while the military paid out only $1.12 billion in education benefits. To find out why it's so hard to obtain the education benefits the military advertises, read on.

Read the Fine Print

Advertisements that offer money for college if you join the military are advertising two programs, the Montgomery GI Bill and the Army or Navy College Fund. Almost all enlistees join the Montgomery GI Bill on entering the military. Far fewer enlistees qualify for the higher benefit Army/Navy College Fund and they must also participate in the Montgomery GI Bill.

In order to receive any education benefit there are several conditions that must be met. First, you must contribute $100 per month for the first twelve months of your tour. Those payments must be made for all twelve months and can't be cancelled once they're begun. There is no refund of that $1200, ever. Additionally, you must receive an honorable discharge, something that 20% of all veterans don't get.

The maximum benefit you can qualify for under the Montgomery GI Bill is $15,575. To earn a larger benefit, like the $30,000 the military is so fond of advertising you must qualify for the Army/Navy College Fund. To do this you must score in the top half of the military entry tests and be willing to enter a designated job specialty. These designated Military Occupational Specialties are the most unpopular in the military. The military has a hard time filling them because they have no skills that are transferable to the civilian job market.

More Obstacles

Even after you've been honorably discharged, you're still a long way from getting that money. Even though you've earned your tuition benefit you probably won't get it all. The military has still more requirements for you to fulfill before you get all of your money. Of course, you must be attending an accredited school. The military's payment plan is based on a four-year college schedule: they'll pay you equal portions of your money over 36 months (the equivalent of four academic years of nine months each). This schedule is not flexible! If you, like 56% of veterans using the Montgomery GI Bill, attend a two-year school or vocational school you can not receive larger payments over a shorter period of time. That means a two-year college graduate will receive only half of the money they have earned!

Even though you earned that money, the Montgomery GI Bill doesn't let you decide how to use it in the way that's best for you. But your argument will fall on deaf ears. The military advertises large amounts of education money but the program is designed so the money is hard to get and harder to use. The inflexibility of the Montgomery GI Bill shows that the military wants to use it to recruit you, not to send you to college.

It Isn't Enough

Even if you qualify for and receive the full $30,000, it isn't worth as much as you might think. While World War II GI Bill participants were able to attend 90% of all schools (public, private, two-year and four-year) with their tuition grant, $30,000 will cover just over one year at most private schools today. Even state universities cost an average of about $9,000 per year. Your benefits probably won't increase while you're in the military (benefits have been raised twice since the program was begun in 1985). But the cost of education will continue to rise at a rate of 5-10% per year. By the time you finish your tour, your education benefit will be worth a quarter less than when you signed up. If you don't go to school right after the military, which many people don't, your benefit will become worth less and less.

You need to ask yourself in a serious and realistic way, do you intend to go to college? If yes, you need to have a plan. That plan may include joining the military, but you can see that will work for only a few people. If your plans for going to college seem to be more dreams than reality, you need to take a long look at what is really possible. If you're hoping that the military can make an unplanned dream come true, it's not going to happen. Don't forget you're risking your own money in the Montgomery GI Bill as well.

How Much Will You Really Get?

Military advertising would have you believe that if you join, $30,000 for your college education is as good as in the bank. But before you plan to spend that $30,000 let's take a look at another scenario, one you're more likely to see. To get $30,000 you must qualify for the Army or Navy College Fund, something only a small percentage of enlistees are able to do. Otherwise the maximum you can get is $15,575. That $15,575 includes, believe it or not, $1200 of your own money! So, now we're down to $13,375.

To receive any of that $13,375 you must be among the eighty percent of veterans to receive an honorable discharge. Even after all this, you still may not see all of your benefit. Because of the monthly benefit payment structure, you have to attend school for four years to get all $13,375. Only 15% of those who pay in have graduated with four-year degrees! If you are among the majority who attend a two-year school, you receive only half of your benefit. That's a grand total of $6690 from the military!

As bad as this sound, for most recruits who have paid into the Montgomery GI Bill it's even worse. Only 35% of all program participants have received any benefits at all! Two-thirds of Montgomery GI Bill participants are paying non-refundable deposits of $1200 without receiving a dime in return!

Planning for the Future

It takes more than money to get through college. It takes discipline, skills and perseverance as well as money. People often talk about a skill that you are supposed to learn in the military: discipline. It's something that is valued highly. Saving for college will take a different kind of discipline than that of the military. But saving for college takes a kind of discipline most people don't learn in the military.

Do you want to learn how to make decisions on your own or learn how to always follow someone else's orders? The military takes care of every detail, telling you where, when and how to do everything. Maybe that's the kind of discipline you think you need. But it isn't the kind of discipline most of us need in the real world. We need to think on our own and make our own decisions. To save for college requires the kind of self-discipline that the real world requires of us.

Saving for college is hard work. But there are people who you can turn to for help. You need to have a plan. Even if you join the military, you still need to know how much the school you want to attend costs. You need to look at the type of school you want to attend. How much does it cost? What will your living expenses be?

First of all, you need to choose a school. Your high school guidance counselor can help, even if you've been out of school for awhile. If you know of a school you're interested in, ask at the Admissions Office. Some public libraries also have higher education assistance centers. Your local church might also sponsor scholarships or be able to help you. Local groups, from school groups to neighborhood associations, can help. The federal government also has programs that give, or loan, you money without forcing you into the military. Ask your guidance counselor, a college admissions office or your Congressional representative's local office about them. See Financing College Without Joining the Military.

Education in the Military?

Recruiters also like to talk about educational opportunities while you're in the military. According to recruiters, not only will you learn skill in your job specialty but you also have the chance to take college courses on base or close by. In theory, this may be true. But when the military commissioned a study to see what soldiers thought of military recruiting, an overwhelming number responded that they thought military advertisements' promises of education were "lies...false" or "not the truth to me." Rather than working with the helicopters you see in slick advertisements, they found themselves "buffin' floors and pickin' up cigarette butts."

Your decision about whether to join the military, with or without the Montgomery GI Bill, is not an easy one. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as weighing the pros and cons of this or that benefit. Other jobs may be hard to come by, but they don't demand what the military demands. You give up your freedom when you join the military, entering a different world with different laws, where others can control your life 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Military's Mission

Above all else, the military is an institution with one overriding purpose: to prepare for and fight wars. You literally sign your life over to the military. For some that joined the military before the Gulf War, they didn't fully realize this until they were faced with an actual war in Saudi Arabia against Iraq. Don't make the same mistake they made. If you're going to join the military be prepared to fight a war, even a war you may not agree with. It could be a war we lose, like Vietnam. Or, it could be a war we win, like in Kuwait. Either way, people are killed and you might be the one who kills them. As much as the war in Iraq has been celebrated, you can find US veterans who can't forget some of the awful things they saw there. Is that the kind of risk you want to take to finance your college education?

There are ethical issues that may or may not be important to your practical decision of whether to join the military to help fund your education. But they are important. It's a form of economic discrimination, sometimes called economic conscription or an economic draft, that forces lower income people into the military in order to earn a living, try to learn a trade or get money for their education. The American Council on Education even attributes a drop in black college enrollment to more aggressive military recruiting in the eighties. The worst thing is, often those who are forced into the military to learn a trade, or earn money for school, don't even get what they believe they were promised!

Be A Smart Consumer

The Montgomery GI Bill was not created to send you, or anyone else, to school. It was designed to recruit soldiers. It may be all the same to you, as long as you end up with money for college. But why the program was created affects its design and how well it is funded. The Montgomery GI Bill is designed to attract you with a large sounding amount of money with lots of strings attached. The maximum benefit of $30,000 quickly dwindles to $13,375 or $6690 for an alarming number of recruits. Many don't find that out until after they've joined! By then it's much too late...

Nobody else can make decisions about what is best for you, not the recruiter and not us. But your decisions should be based on more than slick ads and a recruiter's sales pitch. The military that promises but often does not deliver. To investigate other claims that military advertisement and recruiters make, please contact CCCO.

655 Sutter St. #514

San Francisco, CA 94102

415-474-3002, 415-474-2311 fax

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Philadelphia, PA 19102

215-563-8787, 215-567-2096 fax

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This page last updated March 2nd, 1999