Kayla Nguyen/Vanguard Staff
CHIEF OF STAFF Paul Polsin and Jered Sundquist, a veteran and PSU student, in the new Viking Vets office.
This fall, about 1,200 veterans are receiving GI Bill tuition benefits, up approximately 20 percent from last year.
Additionally, there are at least 400 additional student vets who don’t show up on the books.
The GI Bill was introduced in 1944 as a way for the federal government to give back to service men and women. If utilized within 15 years of their release from active duty, veterans can have their college tuition paid and receive a small stipend.
Partly because of the attendance spike, veterans have a new space in Smith Memorial Student Union, where they can connect to the services and help they need to make their time as students successful. It’s a place mostly for social support, intended to help veterans make the transition to being students, said David Christensen, vice president of development for Viking Vets, the student veterans association.
“A lot of times when veterans come back from service and are trying to reintegrate into the community, they don’t necessarily feel like they belong, or that it’s home anymore,” Christensen said.
Allen Roberts, a U.S. Air Force veteran, works as a veteran certifications officer in Neuberger Hall. He thinks the uptick can be traced to downsizing in the military’s overseas operations. More than 2 million military personnel served on active duty in the last 10 years, and these veterans are now returning.
“Troops are coming home and they are finding it hard to find decent jobs,” Roberts said. The unemployment rate for Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans was 9.5 percent as of June 2012.
Viking Vets was started six years ago by a group of PSU student veterans looking to build support for this demographic. The new Viking Vets office is located in SMSU 401, the space that used to house Queer Resource Center.