A first look at post-9/11 GI Bill-eligible enlisted Veterans’ outcomes

Abstract: The Post-9/11 Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 2008 (also known as the Post-9/11 GI Bill, or PGIB) substantially increased the education benefit available to military service members who served after September 10, 2001. PGIB was enacted on June 30, 2008 (PL 110- 252) and became effective on August 1, 2009. PGIB-eligible veterans can receive benefits that fully cover their tuition and fees at any public college or university (or a capped amount that can be spent at a private college), as well as a monthly housing allowance calculated on the basis of local cost of living, and a books and supplies stipend. A research team from AIR, Census Bureau, and VA’s National Center for Veterans Analysis & Statistics is using these newly linked data to produce multiple reports providing critical insights about PGIB. This report provides a first look at the data by answering the following questions: Who uses PGIB? What are PGIB users’ postsecondary outcomes? What are PGIB-Eligible Veterans’ labor market outcomes? This report focuses on the PGIB outcomes of veterans who were enlisted (rather than commissioned officers).Enlisted personnel represent the vast majority of military servicemembers. They also predominantly enter the military without a postsecondary degr and are thus most likely to benefit from PGIB. The data compiled for this project allow us to answer our research questions as of 2019, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions of education and the labor market. Each chapter in this report answers all three research questions, noted above, but focuses on a specific population. Chapter 1 provides results for PGIB-Eligible Enlisted Veterans overall. Subsequent chapters highlight variation in these veterans’ outcomes by academic preparedness, as measured by the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) score (chapter 2), sex (chapter 3), race and ethnicity (chapter 4), family responsibilities (chapter 5), disability rating (chapter 6), and rurality (chapter 7). The earnings of bachelor’s degree recipients varied by field of study too, but with some differences from what was observed for associate degree recipients. Among bachelor’s degree recipients, computer science majors and engineering majors earned more than 25% above the average PGIB-Clearinghouse User who received a bachelor’s degree, earning 28% and 32% above the average, respectively. Military technology and protective services majors this time joined majors in health care fields and business majors to have earnings very close to the average for all PGIBClearinghouse Users that received bachelor’s degrees. As with associate degree recipients, bachelor’s degree recipients who completed social science, humanities, and education majors had earnings more than 10% below the average for bachelor’s degree recipients; however, in contrast to associate degree completers, bachelor’s degree completers who majored in science also had earnings more than 10% below the bachelor’s degree completer average. This science category includes those with majors in biological and physical science, science technology, math, and agriculture. Although it may seem surprising that science majors earn less than the average PGIB-Clearinghouse User who received a bachelor’s degree, this is not an uncommon finding for recent college graduates (e.g., Carnevale et al. 2013). Once we account for veterans’ other characteristics using regression and look at adjusted earnings, the variation by major again shrinks, with two groups having the most notable changes. First, two of the highest earning majors for bachelor’s degree recipients see their earnings decline but still remain above average once we account for these other characteristics. Specifically, we observe declines of $4,100 for computer and information science and $5,000 for engineering and engineering technology. Second, as the figure shows, veterans who earned a bachelor’s degree in a health care field were within $100 of the average for all PGIB-Clearinghouse Users who received a bachelor’s degree, but after we account for other characteristics their earnings are $5,300 above average. This suggests that majoring in health could be leading to higher salaries for veteran groups that are otherwise earning less. Overall, these results indicate that the wage differences observed for veterans with different majors may be shaped by the characteristics of veterans pursuing these majors as well.