Working Paper: NBER ID: w7452
Authors: John Bound; Sarah Turner
Abstract: The end of World War II brought a flood of returning veterans to America's colleges and universities. Yet, despite widespread rhetoric about the democratization' of higher education that came with this large pool of students, there is little evidence about the question of whether military service, combined with the availability of post-war educational benefits, led these men to increase their investments in education - particularly at the college and university level. This paper uses the structure of the draft during the World War II period and the changing manpower requirements in the armed forces to address the effects of selection in comparisons of the educational attainment of veterans and nonveterans in this era. Using census data, our results indicate that the net effects of military service and the widely available funding for college through the G.I. Bill led to a moderate gain in the postsecondary educational attainment of World War II veterans.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: I2; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Military service and the GI Bill (H56) | Increase in postsecondary educational attainment (I23) |
| Military service and the GI Bill (H56) | Increase in college completion rates (I23) |
| Differences in educational attainment between cohorts born just before and after the war (I24) | Attributed to the GI Bill (I23) |