MILITARY SERVICE AND EDUCATIONAL-ATTAINMENT IN THE ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE

Objective. U.S. veterans of World War II, the Korean conflict, and the post-Korean cold war obtained more education than comparable nonveterans; but this gap reversed during the Vietnam War era, when veterans averaged less education than comparable nonveterans. This paper follows the phenomenon into the era of the all-volunteer force. Also, the educational attainment of female veterans is assessed for the first time in this analysis. Methods. Data on the all-volunteer force period came from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort with its special oversample of military personnel (N = 7,391) and data for comparison to the Vietnam War period came from Coleman's (1961) Adolescent Society study (N = 2,485). Results. Veterans' Vietnam-era education gap was not unique: veterans of the all-volunteer force of the late 1970s and early 1980s lagged over two-thirds of a year behind comparable nonveterans. Since the longer these veterans served, the less education they achieved, it seems as if the time spent in the military interfered with the time they needed for schooling. Results were alike for whites and nonwhites, males and females. Conclusions. Both the secular increase in educational attainment and the stagnation or reduction in military educational benefits seem to have contributed to veterans' educational deficit.