Student veterans at the Veterans’ Center at Fayetteville State University.
After serving 10 years in the Air Force, including a deployment to Afghanistan, Rommie Parker decided to pursue higher education. Though he was last stationed at Bolling Air Force Base, where he was surrounded by colleges and universities in the Washington, D.C., area, Parker chose instead to return to his hometown, Fayetteville, N.C.
Two years ago, Parker enrolled as an undergraduate at Fayetteville State University and has worked about halfway through a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He aims to become an FBI or Secret Service agent.
” Fayetteville State does a good job. They have a dedicated office for veterans. We don’t deal with anybody else on campus,” says Parker, who is employed at the Student Veterans’ Center on work-study.
Parker, 31, is among many military veterans who have gone to college on the Post-9/11 GI Bill since Congress approved it in 2008. The educational benefits have provided a modest boost to enrollments at some HBCUs, particularly those near military installations like Fayetteville State, which is a 20-minute drive from Fort Bragg.
The overall impact on Black colleges is not quite as widespread as that of the original GI Bill, which in 1947 pushed veterans to a peak of 35 percent of their enrollments. But the Post-9/11 GI Bill has helped a number of HBCUs keep pace amid intense competition for students.
