News Home

Student Veterans Need Support

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013
BY JOSHUA M. PATTON 

On the twelfth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the House Higher Education Subcommittee held hearings to look at how to best manage some of the problems new veterans have transitioning from military to civilian life. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the subcommittee, summed up the situation saying, “As more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan, post-secondary institutions now face the largest influx of student veterans on campus since World War II.”

While perhaps technically correct, unlike post-World War II America, which sent 12% of Americans to war, this generation of veterans hovers around one percent of the population. So, especially on a large campuses, it’s not always easy for veterans to find each other. In the military, everything is very structured and adherence to discipline is a key to having success. However, in the collegiate world there is a structure, but it is far more individualized than the military. Arguably, the system was designed with traditional students in mind: late-teenagers who need to develop some kind of personal responsibility for themselves.

In the subcommittee hearings, Kimray Rhinehardt, vice president for federal relations at the North Carolina campus system recognized this disparity by pointing out that a veteran “is not a typical student.” For example, in the military soldiers are used to singular points of contact. You tell your squad leader you need something, it goes up the chain of command, and it is either taken care of for you or you are put in front of the exact person who can address your concern.

College campuses are decentralized and often students are left to ferret out information for themselves. This is why schools who boost their veteran counselors numbers tend to see more success, like Saint Leo University in Florida which award 1485 degrees to vets last year. Also discussed was the sort of training faculty should receive, including how to recognize mental injuries like PTSD. All of this is aimed at boosting veteran retention, especially for those who end up behind in classes or with poor grades.

While this training will certainly be helpful and is well-intentioned, no amount of training can be a substitute for a thriving student veteran community. This does not mean simply having a single student vets group, but perhaps having many different groups. For example, students at The University of Texas at Brownsville founded Veteran Females United, which is a group that looks at the specific needs of female veteran students, some of whom feel marginalized within the traditional veterans groups. With a strong community of veterans, vets can look out for each other, which many do better than looking out for themselves.