A recently published brief from the American Talent Initiative (ATI) is making the case for colleges and universities to enroll and support more student veterans.
ATI – launched in 2016 – is a joint group between Ithaka S+R and the Aspen Institute – supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies – with 132 members composed of high-graduation rate institutions committed to a shared goal to enroll, support and graduate 50,000 additional lower income students at the “327 colleges and universities that consistently graduate at least 70 percent of their students in six years” by 2025, according to the ATI site and Emily Schwartz, Ithaka S+R program manager and one of the brief’s authors.
Approximately 49 of these ATI members are a part of ATI’s Veterans Community of Practice, which is committed to improving opportunities for student veterans, Schwartz said.
Some of these members – 43 are listed in the brief – include Amherst College, Brown University, Columbia University in the City of New York, Harvard University, Indiana University-Bloomington, Johns Hopkins University and Swarthmore College.
“We know that especially the high-graduation rate institutions have historically not enrolled a lot of student veterans,” Schwartz said.” But many of our members want to change that but are sort of at the beginning stages of building a veterans program.”
This brief – the first in a series – is meant to discuss one of the first steps in creating student veteran programs on campus, garnering support among higher ed leadership for student veteran enrollment.
“Many of the members of the ATI Veterans Community of Practice are in the beginning stages of enrolling and supporting student veterans, recognizing the opportunity to realize their promise,” Schwartz said. “To support these institutions, and others like them, we’re publishing a series of practice briefs to address the full “life-cycle” of building a veterans program.
