Time for a New G.I. Bill?

When Johnny came marching home from the second World War, he could march straight into college--or finish high school--with considerable financial help. A grateful nation had passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, which paid for tuition and books (up to $500 a year for four years) and kicked in $50 and up per month for living expenses. Today's Viet Nam veteran gets just $1,575 a year to cover everything--and only for 36 months. That figure represents an increase of 6.7% over what was paid in the 1940s, but it hardly matches the 350% increase in education costs since then.

In an effort to ease their financial strain, some 350 veterans converged on Duluth last week to plan a campaign of political action. Why Duluth? "Because," said one vet, "the hotels offered to put us up for four dollars a head a night, that's why. We're all broke." Arriving by bus, motorcycle and thumb, delegates of the National Association of Collegiate Veterans (N.A.C.V.), which claims 500 chapters representing 250,000 veterans, began efforts to revise and update the obsolete G.I. Bill.

"Many veterans are forced to work now in order to stay in school," says N.A.C.V. Board Member Patrick M. McLaughlin, 25, once a staff sergeant in the 1st Infantry and now a prelaw student at Ohio University. Work cuts down on study time to such an extent, claims McLaughlin, that the 36 months of aid are almost sure to be exhausted before the student has earned enough credits for graduation.

To change an outdated system, N.A.C.V. is organizing vets both on and off campus in hopes of electing local and state officials sympathetic to their needs. N.A.C.V.'s major objectives: a 20% increase in the subsistence allowance; payments of up to $1,000 per year for books, fees and tuition; extension of studies from 36 to 48 months; two months' advance payment to enable veterans to meet registration costs.

"It would be another question if we were asking for more than the Government offered other vets in other wars," says Bill Cunningham, 28-year-old vice president of N.A.C.V., "but that's not the case. Listen, there were a million guys discharged in 1971. This year there'll be more. You've got to do something for these guys; they know full well what their fathers got when they came home."

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