It’s Time to Recruit the Enlisted

The looming demographic cliff has institutions strategizing on how to inch back from the ledge. Amid the apocalyptic predictions, here’s some good news: institutions that are not already tapping into the enormous enlisted veteran population have an opportunity to not only boost enrollment, but to do so with a talented group that will meaningfully contribute to student body diversity and civic engagement. They also bring net tuition revenue thanks to veteran education benefits like the GI Bill.

Enlisted veterans tangibly advance common strategic priorities like increasing access for first-generation college students with demonstrable capacity for societal impact. They’re also a racially and ethnically diverse population, making their recruitment a mission-supporting response to a possible Supreme Court decision this spring. Yet few nonprofit colleges directly recruit these potential students at scale. Now is the time to change that.

First, some definitions that every institution interested in the veteran population should be (but frequently are not) familiar with. “Enlisted” is not the same thing as “active-duty.” “Enlisted” here stands in contrast to commissioned officers and can refer to active-duty, reservists, guardsmen or veterans. The vast majority of enlisted service members do not have an undergraduate degree at the time of enlistment, whereas officers are required to have a degree before commissioning. This is sometimes confounded by the term “noncommissioned officers” (commonly referred to as NCOs), which refers to enlisted service members who have been promoted into positions of leadership within their units.

In recent conversations with graduate school deans, I’ve heard about positive increases in the number of veterans being admitted to top schools. My follow-up question is always, “How many of them are enlisted?” The answers typically demonstrate that administrators don’t know what I mean, and they instead provide a vague answer about the number on active duty.

The more concerning answers suggest that some administrators associate enlisted veterans with “only capable of lower-level degrees or vocational work” or “riddled with PTSD.” If the folks in your admissions office have this type of bias, believe me when I say from experience that veterans see it, are discussing it with their peers and are far less likely to apply to your institution.

Institutions should recognize that there is an enormous opportunity here. Of the 1.8 million enlisted service members currently on active duty or in the reserves, 1.5 million do not yet have their bachelor’s degrees. Roughly two-thirds of them would be first-generation college students, representing a diverse array of racial and economic backgrounds. The National Student Clearinghouse estimates that enrollment dropped by roughly 1.1 million students over the course of the pandemic, which should make that active-duty and reserve population look particularly enticing.

The vast majority of veterans are entitled to GI Bill benefits, which, broadly speaking, covers 36 months of education at all public institutions. For-profit institutions are always the top recipients of GI Bill dollars, with the University of Phoenix leading the way (Phoenix received $1.6 billion in education benefits from 2013 to 2021). Those institutions may be well situated to serve some of the veteran community through a broad range of online degree programs, but traditional institutions do not necessarily need to develop online programming to serve veterans. Approximately 200,000 service members leave the military each year, and many are willing to relocate for an in-person, quality education that meets their career and life objections.

All branches have struggled to meet recruitment targets in recent years, leading some to see the military as competition for the shrinking pool of high school graduates. But even if military recruitment efforts do impact higher education’s 18-year-old freshman funnel, institutions can still benefit from actively recruiting and serving veterans as they separate from military service. A higher schooler who enlisted at 18 might be a missed opportunity for a traditional college applicant in the short term, but when that same person applies four or 20 years later with tangible life experience and the GI Bill, they stand to make an even bigger impact in the classroom.

Once an institution’s leadership sees the value in recruiting and serving enlisted veterans, what next? There is no need to start from scratch. At every type and level of institution, there is a recruitment and support model to pull from.

Here are three examples. The University of Chicago has built a phenomenal Veteran Scholars Program that shows how prestigious private universities can not only recruit enlisted veterans but also ensure their success through tailored support while on campus. Texas A&M University has a world-class support structure that demonstrates how public, land-grant universities can fully embrace this population. And on the community college side, Saddleback College is setting the standard by recruiting directly from nearby military bases and setting student veterans on the path to success at that pivotal time of transition.

The best predictors of student veteran success are confidence and connection to community. Transitioning veterans need to believe that they have a place in higher education, and many of them need support in the admissions process. Once on campus, they will likely benefit from a support structure that allows them to tap into their talents to excel in class and beyond.

The same can be said broadly for first-generation college students and adult learners, which means that an institution that already knows how to support those populations is more than halfway there to understanding how to support enlisted veterans.

A decline in high schoolers doesn’t need to spell the end of higher education as we know it, but it will require adaptation, and quickly. Now is the time to recruit the enlisted.