By Billy S. Garland

Each year, many Americans return from active duty in the military to enroll in some form of higher education. For many, this process is only made more difficult through the added struggles of integration into the student body, difficulty receiving full payment from the GI Bill, problems with transfer credits and abounding stereotypes about veterans. The University of Louisville is working to ease this transition for student veterans.
Earlier this month, “Veteran friendly” signs popped up in windows around campus. They are meant to indicate offices that are welcoming to veterans. To receive a sign, participants must fill out a 10-point pledge to welcome veterans, according to U of L’s Web site.
On Wednesday, Oct. 18, a panel of five veterans sat down before a small audience at the University of Louisville to share their experiences and shed some light on what it is like to be a student veteran.
The event, aptly named Let’s Talk Luncheon, was sponsored by the Cultural Center, Undergraduate Affairs and the newly created Office of Military and Veteran Student Services. The Office of Military and Veteran Student Services was established when Dr. Dale Billingsly and Dr. Tom Jackson of the provost’s office saw the need to design a department specifically focused on reaching out to veteran students. The office’s program coordinator, Terri Carr, opened the luncheon by briefly sharing the mission of the new office.
“We are a newly-created office, geared to support our veteran students,” said Carr. “We are here to essentially serve as a resource for veteran and military students here at U of L.  It is our mission to make the transition from military life to student life as smooth as possible. Also, it will be our charge to track and assess these students.”
After the brief introduction, attention turned to the panel, as questions began to be voiced from the crowd. The first issue addressed was why veterans decide to return to school in the first place.
“I decided to return to school mainly because in today’s world it seems like the bachelor degree is what the high school degree used to be,” said Kevin McDaniel, an Army captain and representative of the Office of Military and Veteran Student Services. “It seems like you need at least a master’s degree to separate yourself from your peers.”
The panel agreed that the necessity of having an upper-level degree serves as the inspiration for many veterans to return to school. Much like many non-veteran students, one of the main problems that many veterans face comes from the cost of higher education.
“I went to Western Kentucky Junior Technical College in Paducah first,” said Ryan Edwards, an Army veteran and senior nursing major. “I have an associate degree from there, and I transferred up here. Most of that was due to cost.”
The majority of veteran students rely on the availability of funds from the GI Bill to pay for their education. While this would seem to be a simple matter, for many, receiving the money can be somewhat difficult.
“There are 205 students at the university that are planning to use money from the GI Bill to pay for school this year,” said Joe Dablow, a Navy veteran and the associate director of the Office of Enrollment Management. “Of those, we have received money from the [Department of Veterans Affairs] for the GI Bill for about 170 of them. So there are still 35 students out there that still haven’t gotten payment. The VA is really backed up right now.”
Part of this backlog is due to a change in procedure on the part of the VA. In the past, certificates of eligibility were given to each veteran student that were then presented to the university, assuring that the student would be taken care of by the GI Bill. Now the students are merely told to tell the school that they will have money coming. The result has been some confusion on the part of the universities as to which students truly have funding, and which don’t.
Adding to the frustration for many students is the question of which, if any, credits from other universities or colleges will transfer. While this issue is not unique to veteran students, it is one of great significance. Many veterans spent some time in school before or after the military, and worry about losing the work they have already done.
“The transfer issue, I think, is the biggest long-term issue to address for veteran students,” said Dablow. “It’s frustrating to have 100 credits and be told that six will count. We are working to be better able to communicate with the students about why these credits will or will not count, or at least say that we have taken these actions to make it easier.”
Regardless of the issues, veteran students have been trickling into the student body at U of L at an increasing rate. While each student carries their own individual goals, personality and struggles, the panel agreed that the hardest part of the transition from military to student life was integrating into the student population. This seems to mainly arise from the age difference between veteran students and traditional students. For most, like graduate counseling major Natesha Smith, this transition was somewhat of a culture shock.
“I transitioned into graduate school after the military,” said Smith. “A couple of things were difficult. One was being around unlike-minded people, who don’t necessarily approach getting things done the way that I do. The second part of that was feeling like I was more mature than the people around me.”
The difficulty represented by integrating into the collegiate lifestyle is reportedly aggravated further through pervasive stereotypes about veterans and military students. As the luncheon reached its close, the panel took time to dispel some of these misnomers.
“Not everyone from the military has post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Dablow.
Smith added that “not every veteran served in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Edwards contributed his least favorite stereotype, that veterans can never get their minds off the military and into the real world.
“If I hear one more person say, ‘This isn’t the army,’ I’m going to snap,” said Edwards. “I kind of know that.”