[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 20, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S2575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          VETERANS' HIGHER EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES ACT OF 2001

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am privileged to be a cosponsor of the 
Veterans' Higher Education Opportunities Act of 2001, S. 131, and I 
will explain why this legislation is so important.
  No one from either side of the aisle questions the importance of 
education as the steppingstone to success in the 21st century. We all 
know that the economy of the future is going to require people with 
specialized training and skills, while the unskilled labor that 
typified the 18th and 19th centuries is becoming less and less useful. 
In this regard, it is hardly surprising that Congress is flooded with 
proposals to enhance access to high-quality elementary education, 
secondary education, and higher education. I myself have strongly 
supported expansion of Pell Grants, broadening of student loans, and 
tax incentives to help families pay for a college education.
  As we rightly promote the importance of government help for higher 
education, it might be useful to recall that one of the first, and most 
successful, of these higher education initiatives was the GI bill that 
was enacted back in 1944. Following World War II, millions of veterans 
were able to obtain college educations through the GI bill, with the 
result that many were able to attain a standard of living they could 
not have imagined. Furthermore, all this college-trained talent 
contributed to the burst of economic advances that improved life for 
all of us over the ensuing decades.
  Fast forward 57 years. We still have a GI bill, and in our highly 
successful all-volunteer military, it turns out that the single most 
important factor that attracts many young people to join the military 
is the availability of educational benefits after discharge. Yet the 
current GI bill suffers from one big flaw: the educational stipend is 
no longer sufficient to pay for the cost of a college education.
  The current monthly payment in the GI bill has not come close to 
matching the rate of inflation in educational costs over the past 50 
years. Just consider these statistics. At present, the standard GI bill 
benefit is $650 per month for 36 months. That is it. Moreover, we now 
ask servicemembers who want educational benefits after discharge to 
contribute $1200 while they are in the military. By contrast, when it 
began in 1944, the GI bill benefit included full tuition and fees at 
any educational institution to which the veteran could gain admittance, 
PLUS a monthly stipend equivalent to $500 in 2001 dollars, $750 for 
married veterans.
  We thus find ourselves in an anomalous situation: at the same time 
that the Government is ramping up its support and subsidy for non-
veterans seeking college educations, the program that started this 
whole thing, and which provides key benefits for those who put their 
lives at risk for the country, is lagging way behind.
  The Veterans' Higher Education Opportunities Act of 2001 goes a long 
way toward redressing this situation. The key provision of this bill is 
quite simple: the total VA educational stipend under the Montgomery GI 
Bill will be increased to a level equal to the average cost of tuition 
at 4-year public colleges. In other words, the standard 36 months of GI 
bill benefits will be sufficient to allow a veteran to attend college 
and complete a degree.
  The Veterans Higher Education Opportunities Act of 2001 provides the 
minimal benefit that we should be offering to those who are willing to 
make the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country free and prosperous, 
and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

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