When the Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 was put into place, it was considered by many to be one of the most important pieces of legislation to be created on behalf of the men and women who serve our country since the original GI Bill was enacted in 1944. Although this new legislation, which went into effect on August 1, is meant to help veterans make the transition from combat to college, there has been one nagging concern: are colleges ready to work with an increased number of vets on their campuses.

Back in 2007, the executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administration, Gwendolyn Dungy, reported that higher education facilities simply were not ready to accommodate the needs of veterans. Today, it doesn’t appear to be much better. Although most institutions are aware that their veteran enrollment may soon be on the rise, they still are not necessary prepared to handle the needs of incoming veterans.

According to research that was recently conducted by Dungy and five other non-profit groups, 2/3 of the 723 colleges studied said they had increased their emphasis on veterans and service members since the 9/11 attacks. In addition 60% reported that they had included programs for these students in their long-term strategic plans. The accuracy of these statistics is questionable, however, as it only represents about 28% of higher learning institutions in the United States. Furthermore, public institutions, which typically take on a larger number of vets, were overrepresented in the study.

No matter how you look at it, there is still room for improvement. In fact, consider these facts regarding schools that self-report having services in place for veterans and service members:

· 82% offer VA education benefits counseling to their military students
· 81% provide college credit to students based on their military training
· 79% have policies in place to refund tuition to students who are deployed or activated by the military
· 32% have a club or some other type of organization for military students
· 23% have staff who have been trained to help veterans suffering from brain injuries
· 22% provide assistance to vets with transitioning to the college environment

So, while a decent percentage of schools have paperwork in place to help vets, they haven’t taken the initiative to train their staff of to take real steps toward helping veterans with what can often be a difficult transition from combat to the campus. For the sake of our vets, let’s just hope this changes some time soon.