FOREWORD IB 04-79-5 - Veterans Benefits Under Current Educational Programs is published twice yearly as of the end of April reporting characteristics of persons in training, and, at the end of each fiscal year, reporting data on persons who trained during the fiscal year. Its purpose is to inform the administrative staff of the Veterans Administration, the Congress and other interested persons about the educational assistance programs which are administered by the Department of Veterans Benefits of the Veterans Administration. This bulletin was prepared by the Reports and Statistics Service. Major efforts in the preparation of the bulletin were made by Elaine T. Bell, Janet M. Somers, Donald D. Stockford, Jeanette R. Williams, George E. Woodard and Michael L. Facine who also coordinated the overall development of this Information Bulletin. Reports & Statistics Service Veterans Administration Washington, D. C. 20420 September 1979 (V) I. INTRODUCTION IB 04-79-5 This bulletin presents data related to the usage of VA education and training benefits by veterans, service personnel, and the survivors and dependents of deceased or totally disabled veterans. In previous bulletins, textual discussions of relevant data items were presented; but with the April 1979 Information Bulletin, a simpler format is adopted which excludes the textual discussions. The new format represents a more concise profile of current educational assistance programs. During the first 10 years of the current GI bill, the numbers of persons in training reached its fall peak in November and its spring peak in April. In fact for each successive peak month through November 1975 trainee counts increased. With the imminence of the May 31, 1976, 10-year delimiting date, the April 1976 in-training count reversed this trend. Now, with fewer veterans eligible to train, the trend has been for each peak month to exhibit a smaller number of persons in training than reported for the previous fall or spring peak months. Concomitant with this reversal April is no longer the peak month for Spring enrollments: at the end of March 1978 there were 935,000 persons in training under chapter 34. This figure exceeded the April 1978 count by 18,500 trainees; at the end of February 1979 there were 740,700 persons in training under chapter 34, and this figure exceeded the April 1979 count by 3,800 trainees. However, since almost all of the data used in the regular preparation of the Information Bulletin are available only for the months of April and November, data for this bulletin are based on the number of persons in training at the end of April 1979. Scope of Information GI bill trainees (Chapter 34): At the end of April 1979 there were 817,000 persons in training under the three educational assistance programs administered by the Veterans Administration. Some 737,000 of these trainees were veterans and active duty service personnel using entitlement under the GI bill (see table 3). Dependent's Educational Assistance (Chapter 35): A much smaller part of the 817,000 total trainees is the 64,000 eligible dependents (see definition in Section III. A brief statement of eligibility for training under this program is presented in Section IV. Vocational Rehabilitation and other training by disabled veterans (Chapter 31): There were 17,000 disabled veterans who were receiving training under the Vocational Rehabilitation program at the end of April 1979; however, when we consider all of the training taken by disabled veterans, this is only the "tip of the iceberg." For example, the 18,000 chapter 31 trainees reported at the end of November 1977 represent only 22 percent of all the disabled veterans in training at that time under VA auspices; there were an additional 63,000 using GI bill benefits. |