Impact of the new GI Bill

Duke University's newspaper takes a look at the potential for rising college enrollments when the new and improved GI Bill kicks in next August. Quoting a passage from Over Here: How the GI Bill Transformed the American Dream, the article recalls just how important a robust GI Bill was to Americans' postwar prosperity:

They intended this GI Bill of Rights simply as a bit of help for the 16 million men and women who so bravely served their country. Instead, quite by accident, it transformed America and rewrote the American dream. The GI Bill made homeowners, college graduates, professionals, rocket scientists and a booming middle class out of a Depression-era generation that never expected such opportunity. Today’s America was built on the bill’s greatness. The ‘greatest generation’ would not exist without it.

The Many Lives of Jerry Brown

Love him or hate him, there's no denying that Jerry Brown is a fascinating character.

 Here's my profile of the former (and possibly future) governor, mayor, presidential candidate and current California Attorney General, from California Lawyer Magazine.

Conventional Wisdom Surging

I've got a piece up at Huffington Post that examines some wrong-headed conventional wisdom continually repeated in campaign reporting: the alleged success of "The Surge" in Iraq, and Senator John McCain's claim to be a tested military leader who "knows how to win a war." Since these are both central elements of McCain's candidacy, the facts ought to be part the discussion:

One key factor is almost always omitted in discussions of the surge's presumed effects: At the same time the violence declined, the U.S. started paying $30 million in bribes every month to the terrorists... Read more

GI Bill and Over Here on CBS

CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood provided an excellent overview of the vital and transformative role the GI Bill played in postwar America, and tied that in nicely with the difficult battle in Congress this past year to bring its benefits up to date for today's veterans.

It was a pleasure to participate in a piece that reminds the nation what a visionary government can accomplish when it invests in the future of an entire generation. That original GI Bill investment opened up colleges to the middle class, created the middle class, and provided the impetus for transforming a nation of renters into a nation of homeowners. Most people don't understand how opposed the private sector was to such ideas, but the GI Bill -- and the determined veterans who used it after the war -- burst through those barriers, bringing prosperity to the whole nation.

Here's some background on the GI Bill, from Over Here:

It educated fourteen future Nobel Prize winners, three Supreme Court justices, three presidents, a dozen senators, two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 450,000 engineers, 240,000 accountants, 17,000 journalists, 22,000 dentists – along with a million lawyers, nurses, businessmen, artists, actors, writers, pilots and others. These are the men and women who used their educations to fight and win the Cold War, take us to the moon, usher in the age of the computer, and build much of what is good in America today. 

Prominent beneficiaries of the World War II-era GI Bill include Norman Mailer, Art Buchwald, Elmore Leonard, Frank McCourt, Rod Serling, Arthur Penn, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Bob Dole, George McGovern, George H.W. Bush, Ted Stevens, Sprio Agnew, William Rehnquist, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and John Paul Stevens - just to name a few.

And for every dollar that was spent educating WW II veterans, that investment returned $7 to the economy. So on top of everything else, it was a bargain for America.

Over Here on CBS Sunday Morning

This Sunday is the 64th anniversary of the GI Bill, and I'll be discussing the landmark legislation's past and present on CBS Sunday Morning. Here's an audio preview from the Osgood Files.

The anniversary -- along with a good deal of public pressure -- seems to have backed down government grinches, led by President Bush and Senator John McCain, who had opposed a much needed update to the GI Bill and its important educational benefits. Now the GI Bill for the 21st Century appears a lock for enactment, and today's veterans will get a genuine college education for their service, like the World War II veterans I profile in Over Here. Here's an excerpt from Over Here.

GI Bill, Science Edition

The original GI Bill trained a generation of American scientists and engineers -- and made America a world leader in technology. Science Magazine takes a look at how an improved GI Bill can again be a vehicle for better science education. Interesting read.

Image vs Reality: Why McCain Says No to a Better GI Bill

Many people -- and many in the press -- seem puzzled by presidential candidate John McCain's opposition to a GI Bill for the 21st Century, which will finally provide solid college benefits for veterans after leaving them short-changed for many years. In my new LA Times oped, I explain why there is nothing surprising at all by the Arizona senator's position -- if you consider his record, rather than his image. And you can read details on the proposed improvements to the GI Bill here.