• “Though it had long been recognized among military and civilian leadership that America’s post-secondary institutions would play a central role in this process (Altschuler & Blumin, 2009; Loss, 2012)—a feeling ultimately expressed in Title II of the GI Bill—it was not as easy as simply offering returning veterans education benefits, however generous. The difficulty, often elided in traditional accounts of the GI Bill, is captured in several basic statistics about America’s returning veterans: 59% of white veterans and 83% of black veterans had not graduated from high school and a full 26% of white veterans and 55% of black veterans had never attended high school at all (Mettler, 2005, p. 56; Smith, 1947, p. 250). The limited prior academic achievement posed a serious problem to those who viewed postsecondary education as the primary mechanism for reintegrating veterans, because a high school diploma was increasingly necessary not only for college enrollment but for licensure in a growing number of occupations (Hutt 4)”.