Fifty-one percent of student veterans who participated in the GI Bill since 2009 have gone on to graduate, according to new data.
The Student Veterans of America (SVA) worked with the Veterans Affairs Department and the National Student Clearinghouse on the report, “A Review of Veteran Achievement in Higher Education” as part of the Million Records Project.
Though veterans haven’t reached the graduation rates of traditional students (56 percent), they have surpassed the graduation rates of non-traditional civilian students (43 percent).
“The majority of student veterans accessing their GI Bill benefits are completing degrees and showing unparalleled determination to do so, despite many unique barriers,” said Wayne Robinson, president and CEO of SVA, in a press release. “A single deployment can interrupt a student veteran’s education for at least nine to 13 months, but they’re returning to the classroom and completing.”
Most veterans were able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four to six years or with an associate’s degree within four years.
Public schools were the most frequent choice for veterans, with 71.7 percent graduating from public schools. Just over 15 percent graduated from private institutions and almost 13 percent went to for-profit schools.
Business was one of the top bachelor’s degree fields for student veterans, along with social sciences, homeland security, law enforcement and firefighting and computer and information sciences.
This report is part of an ongoing series of research that will be published over the next year, helping to fill the gap in data about the academic progress of student veterans. The next phase will examine how veteran services and policies impact their education and career successes.
Google, Lumina Foundation, Raytheon and The Kresge Foundation awarded SVA over $2.2 million in grants to help fund the Million Records Project.
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