In October 2023, we published an analysis of GI bill beneficiary data that showed that these students were shifting away from for-profit institutions toward four-year public and private not-for-profit institutions, but in doing so were still not enrolling at the four-year institutions where they were most likely to graduate.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently released updated data on GI bill beneficiaries’ enrollment patterns, allowing us to explore whether these trends have persisted.[1] In short, trends have remained largely unchanged, although there are a few signs of minimal progress.

When looking at the distribution of enrollment by sector, we found, encouragingly, that slightly fewer GI bill beneficiaries (17 percent versus a previous 18 percent) were attending for-profit institutions. These students largely seem to be shifting to four-year public and private not-for-profit institutions (66 percent of GI bill beneficiaries now, compared to 64 percent previously). This shift away from for-profits was more pronounced for GI bill beneficiaries than for students overall.

Figure 1: Distribution of Enrollment by Sector

As we’ve written about before, four-year public and private not-for-profit institutions are not a monolith, as there is a wide range of student outcomes. If GI bill beneficiaries are attending institutions with low graduation rates, they are not likely to achieve the full benefits of obtaining a bachelor’s degree.

The distribution of enrollment at these institutions by graduation rate has only slightly changed since our last analysis, although in the positive direction. Twenty-three percent of GI bill beneficiaries enroll at institutions with six-year graduation rates of at least 70 percent, up from 22 percent in our last analysis. Despite this small growth, there remain large disparities between GI bill beneficiaries and students overall, with GI bill beneficiaries much less likely to attend the institutions where they are most likely to graduate.

Figure 2: Distribution of Enrollment at Four-Year Public and Private Not-For-Profits, by Graduation Rate

While these results show some encouraging signs, they also reinforce that there is still lots of work to do to improve enrollment patterns for student veterans. Recently, my colleagues Cappy Hill, Mike Fried and I were interviewed by Therese A. McCarty about the types of strategies institutions with high graduation rates can use to attract and retain veterans. The full article, “‘A Win-Win’”: Broader Access for Veterans in Higher Education” is available in The Journal of Veterans Studies. I also encourage you to visit our landing page for more information on how to improve postsecondary opportunities for veterans.

 

[1] The data include the number of beneficiaries who received 9-11 GI bill beneficiaries by institution. The institution-level data in our last report were reported in October 2021 and the VA defined them as from the “last calendar year.” We compared those data to national enrollment data in IPEDS from academic year 2020-21. The VA says the newly released data are from “calendar year 2024.” In the updated graphs below, we compared these data to national enrollment data for undergraduate and graduate students in IPEDS from academic year 2023-24. The GI bill beneficiary data include both veterans and their dependents, who are also eligible for educational benefits, and include students pursuing both undergraduate and graduate degrees. We cannot look specifically at trends in undergraduate veteran students because the VA data do not distinguish between undergraduates and graduates. Despite these limitations, these are the best data to compare military-affiliated enrollments across higher education sectors.