FDR Signs GI Bill of Rights
President Franklin D. Roosevelt on this day signed the GI Bill of Rights into law (officially, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944).
The benefits included payments for college tuition and expenses, low-interest home mortgages, low-interest business loans, high school or vocational education expenses, and one year of unemployment compensation. A person had to be on active duty for 90 days to qualify, and combat experience was not required.
The benefits in the GI Bill have since been expanded in many ways. During the Vietnam War and immediately afterwards, however, many critics argued that the prevailing benefits had not kept pace with rises in the cost of living and did not match those of the post-World War II benefits with respect to cost-adjusted college expenses.
President Roosevelt: “With the signing of this bill a well-rounded program of special veterans’ benefits is nearly completed. It gives emphatic notice to the men and women in our armed forces that the American people do not intend to let them down.”
Read President Franklin Roosevelt’s Signing Statement: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=16525
Learn about today’s GI Bill of Rights: http://www.gibill.va.gov/
Learn more: Michael J. Bennett, When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (1996)