Private Colleges Consider Plan to Help Veterans

By Cate Doty

Even as they watch their endowments dwindle and financial aid applications surge, private colleges and universities are deciding whether they can afford to participate in a new G.I. Bill plan that splits the cost of private tuition with the government, allowing veterans to study at private colleges for free.

The post-Sept. 11 G.I. bill, which was signed into law last year, will pay a qualified veteran’s entire tuition at the most expensive public school in a state (in New York, that’s $970 per credit hour, one of the highest in the country.) Veterans could also take that money and apply it to a private or out-of-state school. But for those who chose to attend a more expensive private school — like Harvard or Columbia — the plan would leave them with significant debt

To fill that void, the Department of Veterans Affairs designed what it calls the “Yellow Ribbon Program,” which will pay up to 50 percent of a veteran’s tuition at any private school, as long as the school agrees to waive either a portion or the rest of the bill. So far, small and large colleges across the nation — Columbia, Amherst College and Dallas Baptist University among them — have signed onto the program. Other schools, like Harvard and American University in Washington, are examining how to pay for it. the V.A. has asked schools to respond by May 15, and the program goes into effect on Aug. 1.

“We looked at the package and said, ‘How do we not fund this?’” said Curtis Rodgers, the dean of enrollment management at Columbia’s School of General Studies, which will waive the full 50 percent for qualified veterans. “It’s an investment on our part, certainly, but it’s an investment that allows a certain segment of the population to come here and be fully funded.”

Mr. Rodgers said the General Studies school expects to finance at least 60 veterans through the program this year, and estimates that the number will grow as soldiers continue to return home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sean O’Keefe, a Columbia junior who served as a Green Beret in the Balkans, said his last year of undergraduate school and first year of law school will be paid for by the program.

“There are some veterans who will be graduating with well over $100,000 in debt,” he said. “Hopefully cases like that will become scarce, if not obsolete.”