Two weeks after the D-Day landings in Normandy, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, more commonly known as the GI Bill. That landmark measure would provide both college tuition grants and a stipend for the returning service members who had “been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice than the rest of us,” according to Roosevelt. Even though the war would still rage on for another year, leaders in Washington recognized that millions of young soldiers, sailors and airmen would soon be returning to civilian life, and for their sake and for the sake of a vibrant postwar economy, creating this educational pathway made tremendous sense.
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