Tuesday letters: Recruit veterans to attend S.C. State

I was most impressed with Warren Bolton’s March 13 column (“Four-year graduation rates lag for minorities”) that reported that the four-year graduation rates for minorities are abysmal at S.C. State, USC-Beaufort and Francis Marion. To a large extent, such low rates result from having students with an SAT score of only 850 or so trying to do college-level work.

But that said, I agree that some top-notch students do attend those universities with low graduation rates. S.C. State’s ROTC program has produced some 19 admirals and generals, mainly because those bright students who attained that rank realized that the military services, the Army especially, have for many decades been equal-opportunity employers. Witness the number of black generals and admirals in the services today.

With that in mind, one avenue of improving the caliber of students who enter S.C. State is to recruit veterans leaving the service and seeking a college education. Each veteran leaving today has some 36 months of college available. The current GI Bill provides full tuition and books and an approximately $1,000-a-month stipend for living expenses. Such students are not only more mature, but would not need grants or loans to complete college.

One way to achieve this is to enlist Maj. Gen. Abraham Turner, an S.C. State graduate and former Fort Jackson commander, as a special assistant to the president for veteran/military recruiting and let him visit military bases in the Southeast or wherever, to explain the sterling record of S.C. State in producing generals and admirals. Some of these veterans would be interested in obtaining a commission through the ROTC program since they would receive credit for the first two years by virtue of their previous service.

Columbia

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 10:53 AM.