By Samantha Masunaga
Daily Bruin, UCLA

(UWire)--When student-veteran Travis Lynn returned to school at the end of his contract with the Marines, he saw it as a second chance.

The third-year mechanical engineering student now attends UCLA and is one of many student-veterans who receive monetary benefits from the GI Bill.

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, was passed by Congress after World War II to help soldiers to assimilate back into civilian life, according to the U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs Web site. The law was intended to provide for education, training and loan guarantees for homes and businesses, as well as unemployment pay for returning veterans.

Both Lynn and fellow UCLA student-veteran Jason Kolons are part of a nationwide increase of veterans returning to college through the GI Bill. According to the Associated Press, the number of college-bound veterans this fall is expected to increase 30 percent from last year to nearly half a million.

Lynn's experience with the GI Bill began even before he returned to civilian life. A five-year veteran, Lynn originally attended Purdue University in Indiana after he graduated from high school in 1998, but later dropped out.

Benefits may not be the same for every veteran and the amount of benefits received is dependent on a veteran's years of service, time spent in combat, and if he or she was injured.
-Tina Oakland"I didn't feel that it was right," he said.

As a result, Lynn decided to give military service a try and signed up for the U.S. Marines.

Lynn was deployed overseas twice and spent time in Iraq, and also participated in training exercises in Dubai, Bahrain and Somalia.

However, Lynn began to regret his decision to leave college.

"From the moment I left, I knew I wanted to go back," he said, adding that this feeling became more pronounced throughout his time in the military.

During boot camp, Lynn said that the military gave detailed information about the GI Bill to soldiers.

Lynn said that they emphasized the chance to sign up for the program and that the best way that the soldiers could use it was to go to school.

So Lynn signed up and after his contract with the Marines ended, he attended Moorpark College for two years before transferring to UCLA.

He said that the monetary benefits that he receives from the bill are helpful, as his family is not extremely wealthy.

"It's an extra $1,300 a month," he said, adding that the money helps to pay for daily living expenses. "And after August, it'll pay for things that I used loans for."

Lynn is referring to the new Post-9/11 GI Bill, which was updated in 2008 and gives veterans enhanced educational benefits after it goes into effect in August.

These benefits include a tuition and fees payment equivalent to that of the most expensive state institution of higher learning, a monthly housing allowance based on the military's basic allowance for housing in the area in which the veteran attends school, and an annual book stipend of approximately $1,000, according to the Web site.

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