How Veterans Screw Up College

I went back to school following my combat tour in Vietnam. I was older than many students on campus. Campus sentiment was negative toward active and veteran military. I simply ignored it and pursued my goal of getting the education I wanted.

I disagree with the article. "The veteran community is incentivized, professionally and socially, to screw up in school." Bullcrap. Veterans fail in school for the same reasons civilians do. Nobody enters school with an incentive to fail.

I'm currently attending college for a Bachelors in Computer Science. Every single semester I get dropped from classes because the VA fails to being my Hazelwood Exemption (Texas students) to the finance office (3 rooms away). In addition they often fail to submit or completely submit my GI Bill entitlement (not free money as the article states, but money I'm entitled to because I paid into the GI Bill when I initially entered into the service). This causes me undie financial hardship as I am penalized by utility companies and others I owe debt to because of late fees. An example of this is my Winter Mini session where I took what is considered a full course load (1 class) when I recieved my payment it was only about $600 of the $1700 I was entitled to. The system in place causes me to recieve seperate checks if a pay period encompasses both two separate semesters. Therefore it is typical to wait a day or two for the following remainder. However, I never recieved a second payment. This caused me to go to the schools VA office and find out what went wrong. Apparently they submitted documentation for my Spring classes but not my Winter class. So now I have to choose between buying books and paying my bills. But I have to buy my books or I fail my following semester. I have to pay my bills or I can't do the mandated online homework at home. If I can't do it at home I have to travel to the school off schedule which cost gas money. Since I didn't pay my truck note I incurr a late fee and suffer though calls from the bank and explaining why I haven't paid them yet.

The VA just says my bad and move on with their life like it's no big deal. This is likely one of the reasons students don't finish. Because it's not dependable. Because some people are tired of dancing for the VA.