GI Bill having the effect McCain warned about

Christian Science Monitor:

Veterans are scrambling to sign up for a generous new GI Bill, accepting a nation's collective thanks for serving in the military since 9/11. But there are questions about whether the government's magnanimity will create a military exodus.

Since May 1, more than 25,000 veterans have signed up for the new GI Bill, which will pay 100 percent of in-state college tuition, housing, and other expenses. When the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) opened the online registration site two weeks ago, the system crashed from the weight of interest. The stream of applicants has been steady ever since.

The concern is that the program could be so enticing that many service members will leave the military to go to school. "Some observers believe there is going to be a giant sucking sound from a large number of individuals saying, 'Why wouldn't I go to college, this is a great opportunity,' " says Cindy Williams, a security analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "I would say nobody knows – in particular, the VA doesn't know and the Department of Defense doesn't really know."

The new GI Bill is an overhaul of the original 1944 law that was responsible for sending a generation of veterans to college. It will not replace the World War II-vintage bill, known as the Montgomery GI Bill. It is an additional offering by the VA.

The new bill is proving more popular, though, because it pays the full cost of tuition for public undergraduate schools. The Montgomery bill pays a flat rate. This bill will cost taxpayers $62 billion during the next decade as it aims to reward some of the 2.1 million veterans who served any time after 9/11 for at least 30 days.

The VA points to Mike Dakduk as a poster boy for the program. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2004 after traveling from Nevada to see the remains of the World Trade Center. Inspired to serve by the destruction he saw, he enlisted in New York City. His four years in the Marines included a tour in Iraq followed by another in Afghanistan.

Now, he is studying public policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The government is already picking up some of his expenses, because he is on the old GI Bill. But when the new one kicks in on Aug. 1, the federal government will pay all his tuition, as well as a living allowance of as much as $1,400 per month – in a city where he now pays $600 per month to live.

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Democrats pushed this bill because they wanted to make it harder to retain troops needed to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have been trying to find a way to undermine the war effort and this appeared to be a patriotic way of doing it.