The last iteration of the G.I. Bill was updated eight years ago in 2017 under the Trump Administration. The Harry Colmery “Forever G.I. Bill” on the surface looks like a godsend. It would be if it helped all veterans. It doesn’t. The Forever G.I. Bill is unlike Veterans Affairs health care, where all veterans are eligible.

Being able to use the Forever G.I. Bill after losing your government job depends on whether you were lucky enough to have gotten out after Jan. 1, 2013. Only approximately 15% of “Forever G.I. Bill” veterans have access. Sorry. Older veterans be damned. I got out of the service in 2005.

I loved attending Northwestern. Not only was I attending a top-tier university, I felt valued as a non-traditional student, as a veteran and as a student over the age of 55. I was lucky enough to use some of my G.I. Bill at Northwestern before it expired in 2020. My mother had Parkinson’s Disease and I stayed with her while I attended classes. I would have liked to use all of it. I appealed the expiration date and was denied by the VA. There is no grandfather clause to use the new G.I. Bill, so I wasn’t able to return.

Here are some of the G.I. Bill’s history and what led to the lack of G.I. Bill education access in 2025.

D-Day: June 6, 1944
The year 2024 was the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord, a turning point of World War II. It was the day that will forever be remembered as the date that President Eisenhower directed our young and brave GIs to storm the beaches of Normandy with our allied forces.

Returning home after the war, Eisenhower commemorated his fighting men with more than ticker-tape parades. He initiated the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill, which provided servicemen with a great tool to reenter society. It has been a godsend for veteran education and upward mobility for decades. Then, 80 years later, the G.I. Bill needs an update. Our nation’s fighting men and women are well worth the investment.

The “Forever G.I. Bill”
The current G.I. Bill is a kick in the teeth to World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm vets — in short, everyone who got out of the service from 1944 to 2013. The Harry Colmery G.I. Bill of 2017 has needlessly created a case of the “educational haves” versus the “educational have-nots.”

After returning stateside, a Vietnam veteran exposed to Agent Orange and having just survived the jungles of Vietnam probably did not make the halls of academia on a college campus their priority. PTSD was not even classified as a DSM-III category psychological disorder until 1980, a full half-decade after the Vietnam War ended.

The G.I. Bill has always been a potential ticket out of poverty and to the middle class. VA doesn’t limit access to VA health care based on age, rank, branch of service or time in service. The G.I. Bill should emulate those same standards. G.I. Bill expiration dates have never made any sense. A PTSD survivor could take years before feeling ready to transition to the rigors of an academic setting.

I served on active duty with Staff Sergeant Jeffrey Beltran at Fort Riley in Kansas in a Combat Engineer unit. I was a medic, and he was an advanced combat engineer known as a “sapper.”

SSG Beltran went on to serve in Iraq. He was injured outside Camp Taji in 2005, 30 kilometers north of Baghdad. Beltran, a disabled Army combat veteran, regrets not being able to keep using his G.I. Bill. His story is featured in the Max documentary “Baghdad ER” with the 86th Combat Support Hospital.

I met an old Navy vet once with his son. He told me that the biggest regret in his life was not using his G.I. Bill. He was set to retire as a janitor after 30 years. He told me that he is making sure his son goes to college.

“Thank god the VA health care system isn’t run the same way as the G.I. Bill,” The Navy vet said. He added the scenario of visualizing being on the operating table and being told, “Sorry, we can’t operate on you today. Nice of you to put your life on the line, but your VA health care benefits have expired. We hope you don’t expire. Good luck. Have a nice day.”

I had the Montgomery G.I. Bill. In 1990, some of us had to pay the Montgomery G.I. Bill $100 a month for over a year. Veterans who didn’t use the GI Bill should get that money back — no questions asked.

As every veteran knows, the transition from a life in uniform to the civilian world is not an easy one. For those veterans who haven’t been to school in a long time, they may encounter additional hurdles, especially the change from the analog classroom to a digital one.

When I used my G.I. Bill, I took a semester of community college classes as a “warm-up” to a university setting. Zoom classes, portals and online assignments were something that took time to adapt to. Another surprise to me — every “bricks-and-mortar” classroom had a certain percentage of online reading assignments and papers to submit digitally.

The G.I. Bill celebrated its 80th anniversary last year. Originally called the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, the G.I. Bill was at least in part responsible for the baby boom, the establishment of the American suburbs, cul-de-sacs, white picket fences, 2.3 kids and the rise of the middle class.

Soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen came home after World War II, and the G.I. Bill changed America. In a very real sense, the G.I. Bill has expanded and matured to full value, similar to the U.S. Saving Bonds of WWII. The G.I. Bill can be used for qualified training programs, flight school, apprenticeships, licensing programs, STEM scholarships, certification tests, admission tests, trade school and housing. The G.I. Bill can also be used by eligible dependents and survivors of veterans.

In 2025, let’s make sure every veteran can use it. Education can increase one’s earning potential, and no one can ever take away all the vast knowledge accumulated over those years. The clock shouldn’t be ticking and then run out on a veteran’s desire to learn a new field of study, new skill or new trade.

If a veteran gets accepted to their choice of an institution of higher learning, they should be able to attend at age 22, 32, 42 or any age they feel ready to attend. Access to the G.I. Bill later in life when thinking about a career change should be at every veteran’s disposal if they so choose.

The first step was the extension of the G.I. Bill’s expiration date from 10 to 15 years. The second step was the “Forever G.I. Bill” for some of the veterans. The final step would be a Forever G.I. Bill for all of the veterans.

A grandfather clause into the Forever G.I. Bill for veterans with expired G.I. Bill’s is long overdue. Anything less comes off as an insurance company not wanting to pay on customers’ claims. Politicians can proudly rename the new G.I. Bill the “Forever for ALL Veterans G.I. Bill.”

Veterans need the GI Bill as30% of the Federal Workforce is comprised of Veterans and6000 veterans have been fired or laid off so far. Nelson Mandela said that, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” President Trump has lost sight of this. Our country’s veterans have always been and continue to be a valuable investment.

On the Student Veterans of America website, it says: “Student Veterans using the Post 9/11 bill are more likely to graduate, to have a higher GPA… have a 72% success rate in higher education.” Amen. Our former sailors, airmen, coast guard, guardians and Marines deserve nothing less than a lifetime of full access to their educational benefits from the G.I. Bill.

Jeff Walsh attended the School of Professional Studies and was an Army Medic and Army Sergeant who served in Army and Army National Guard from 1990 to 2005. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.