You Shouldn't Have to Go To War to Go To College

There are many reasons to join the military, but one of the most enticing is education. Indeed, a 2017 poll conducted by the Department of Defense found that 49% of Army recruits signed up to pay for their education. It makes sense. Military education packages are incredibly attractive, which is quite the recruitment carrot. For a huge number of recruits, joining the military means finding a way to pay for school they couldn’t otherwise afford. That may say less about the luster of military benefits and more about a problem in our public policy. As education scholar William Ayers wrote back in 2006, as recruitment fell short of quotas, “High schools have thus become battlefields for the hearts and minds of young people…recruiters dangle gifts and promises of future benefits before teenagers in an effort to fill the ranks of an all-volunteer military.” Is our country making it hard to get an education on purpose?

Some critics suggest military recruitment strategies have sought to weaponize poverty. By the 1980s, the term "poverty draft" had gained traction, articulating the idea that the enlisted ranks of the military were composed of young people with limited economic opportunities. There is speculation that the Pentagon even embraced programs like No Child Left Behind as part of a broader strategy to improve recruitment by targeting low-income youth. Though these may be cynical perspectives on a simple matter of correlation, it does appear that the military struggles to draw youth to join the ranks whenever more attractive alternative economic pathways emerge. After a long recruitment drought, last year’s numbers finally climbed, but Army officials link it to “a higher unemployment rate among people aged 16 to 24…” In other words, if the economy is depressed enough, as long as the military is one of the few employers still hiring, a recruitment drought won’t be so obvious.

This is why when President Biden moved to cancel a chunk of student debt, a number of lawmakers panicked. One Congressman tweeted that he was “very concerned that the deeply flawed and unfair policy of blanket student loan forgiveness will also weaken our most powerful recruiting tool at the precise moment we are experiencing a crisis in military recruiting.” Many believed the military was on the cusp of a recruiting crisis; a group of 19 Republican lawmakers said cancelling debt would feel like the military’s “legs are being cut out from underneath them.” They said the quiet part out loud. As educator and activist Nina Turner responded: “Read between the lines: these folks want poor people to be put in a corner so they will . . . just enlist to receive an education.”

I am unbelievably blessed to have a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a law degree from the University of San Diego, and a Master of Laws from Columbia University–all free. I owe the Navy for that. Between ROTC scholarships, the Post-9/11 GI Bill, Yellow Ribbon benefits, and more, I am 33 years old with three degrees and no student debt, which means I can take a low-paying job in public interest work, say, because I’m not so constricted by the squeeze of economic necessity. That obviously feels great personally, but I think it’s an investment for the country that educated me, too. I have more time and energy to give now to projects I believe in, the kind that make a difference in my community, and not just projects that pay well. It only took four years of Reserve Officer Training Corps and 10 years as a Naval officer, with multiple deployments to the South China Sea and Persian Gulf, to arrive at this feeling of personal freedom. As a country, shouldn’t we help Americans get there quicker? And perhaps find a way to unlock education opportunities that doesn’t require being prepared to die for your country?

We’ve actually run this experiment before. After World War II, knowing that the country would be flooded with millions of veterans, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, aka the G.I. Bill, which opened the doors of educational opportunities for millions of Americans. In fact, the 1944 G.I. Bill is widely regarded as one of the greatest economic achievements in our history, seeing a return on investment of seven dollars for every one dollar invested. By making higher education available to a generation of Americans at little to no cost, the educational and economic power of our country boomed. Presidents, Supreme Court justices, House and Senate members, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners benefited from the post-World War II G.I. Bill, which also helped create 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 450,000 engineers, and an untold number of nurses, artists, and everything else. That’s what happens when you invest in people’s minds instead of rationing that investment as a recruitment incentive.

The same logic holds for canceling broader student debt. The Roosevelt Institute found that debt cancellation would boost short-term consumption by up to 4%, growing real GDP by an estimated $86 to $108 billion over ten years, and lower unemployment. It could also raise Black household wealth by up to 40% and help reverse a 20% decline in homeownership among young adults saddled with loans. Imagine the educational, societal, and economic growth we’d see as a nation if we cancelled student debt and made higher education tuition-free.

Unfortunately, lawmakers have fought debt relief and programs like College for All because it might interfere with enlistment. They may call it national security, but it’s really self-sabotage. Of course, we want a properly manned military. But treating military recruitment as a zero-sum game against education access for the rest of the country is a losing bet for America long-term. We should not be relying on desperation as a recruiting tactic. Veterans deserve extraordinary benefits, but there are plenty of ways to honor service without gatekeeping educational opportunities at the same time.

If we’re serious about education, workforce development, training, and giving young people a real shot at getting ahead, which we should be, then we have to stop feeding the military-industrial complex by reducing opportunities elsewhere. Sure, as long as economic opportunities are scarce, plenty of earnest young people will likely continue to join the military for a foot in the door to a better life. But if protecting one of the military’s best-selling points means depriving the rest of the country of it, maybe we should focus on finding different selling points. Then we’d be free to kick the door of opportunity wide open for all Americans.

Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.