Private initiative sends U.S. veterans to college

Jerome Kohlberg

By Dale Eisman
The Virginian-Pilot

WASHINGTON

One of the nation’s richest financiers invested $4 million in the latest generation of American fighting men and women on Thursday, then challenged other business people and the federal government to follow his lead.

Jerome Kohlberg, a World War II veteran who earned three college degrees with help from the original GI Bill, launched the Fund for Veterans Education – a private program that in January will begin paying college expenses for 100 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He hopes additional donors eventually will allow the fund to assist thousands of young veterans, Kohlberg said. And he urged public and private colleges and universities to provide additional aid in the form of reduced tuition and other fees for veterans.

“The Congress has to step up ” as well, Kohlberg said . “We just have to do this. We can’t not do it.”

Kohlberg, 80, used his federally financed college education to launch an investment firm that made him a billionaire, ranked No. 799 in Forbes m agazine’s 2007 listing of the world’s richest people.

The U.S. economy and the federal treasury reaped $7 for every $1 invested in him and 7.8 million other World War II vets under the original GI B ill, according to a 1988 c ongressional estimate.

His college fund, which counts veterans and celebrities including entertainers Harry Belafonte and Paul Newman and former U.S. Sens. Bob Dole and Warren Rudman among its board of advise rs, comes as legislation to boost federal college aid to today’s veterans is bogged down in a Senate committee.

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who attended law school on the GI B ill after wounds suffered in Vietnam cut short his Marine Corps career, has made a new aid program for veterans his signature legislative proposal during his first year in office. So far, he has been unable to bring it to a vote.

The Kohlberg fund “is a great private initiative, but it unfortunately underscores the importance of a more robust GI B ill for all of our post-9/11 veterans – many of whom have served multiple or extended tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Webb said in a statement .

Webb met Thursday with two Virginians, Marine Corps reservists and identical twins Dean and Dustin Meadows, 20, of Farmville, who are among the first 11 vets selected for scholarships from the fund.

Another of the initial aid recipients, Joshua Holder, 27, of East Bend, N.C., is a former machinist mate on the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Enterprise.

In an interview, Dustin Meadows said he did not expect the federal government or a private benefactor to pick up the tab for his college education when he joined the Marine reserve and then deployed to Iraq last year.

But returning veterans “should not have to choose between supporting a family and going to school,” he said.

The new fund will pay a portion of tuition and fees for the twins, who are studying political science at Longwood University in Farmville . Payments vary based on the needs of the recipients. T he program, unlike the original GI Bill, does not cover expenses for housing and meals; that would be considered taxable income, officials said.

Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already are eligible for aid under the Montgomery GI Bill. But it covers only a portion of their college expenses . Troops also must contribute $100 per month during their first year in the military to be eligible for aid under the Montgomery GI Bill.

Tuition, room and board for in-state students at four-year public institutions in 2006-07 averaged $12,796, according to the College Board. For private schools, the annual cost was $30,367.

Webb’s bill has been held up in part because of Bush administration concerns about its impact on the federal treasury.

The federal government spent $2.76 billion last year to administer the current program, and Webb spokeswoman Jessica Smith said Thursday that informal estimates from the Congressional Budget Office indicate her boss’ plan would add $2 billion annually to those costs.

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872,

dale.eisman@pilotonline.com