It’s the first Friday of the month, which means the monthly unemployment report is here. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the latest numbers at 8:30 a.m. In April, the country added 164,000 jobs, dropping the overall unemployment rate to 3.9%, the first time since 2000, when Bill Clinton was still president and the World Trade Center still towered over lower Manhattan. This morning, the overall unemployment dropped once again – to 3.8%, and the U.S. added 223,000 jobs – higher than the analysts predictions.
Veteran unemployment in May was 3.7 percent – the same rate as April – a vast improvement over the lowest points of the recession. But I continue to remind anyone who will listen that veterans face a completely different set of hurdles in their job searches, from not knowing what to wear, to false assumptions about their lives and backgrounds.
Veterans constitute a large chunk of job seekers with security clearances, and ClearanceJobs is a place where veterans and recruiters can find each other. So as my continuing public service to the community, here is the third installment discussing things that recruiters think they know about the military, but don’t.
Myth: We’re all uneducated
Remember the trouble then-Sen. John Kerry got himself into while running for president in 2004? In an effort to poke fun at President George W. Bush, who was a famously solid C-student at Yale, Kerry told a group of California college students, “You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” Kerry intended to draw a parallel between Bush’s grades, and Kerry’s judgement that the invasion of Iraq was misguided and the result of Bush’s subpar intelligence.
Fun fact: John Kerry’s average at Yale was 76 percent, one point lower than Bush’s 77 percent. But that’s not the point here.
Kerry found himself in the midst of a controversy, because people assumed he was referring to the old myth that people enlist in the military do so because they’re not smart enough for college. It’s demonstrably false, yet many still believe it.
First, there is the officer-enlisted divide. Officers, those in ranks of second lieutenant and higher, must in almost every circumstance have a bachelor’s degree; if they finish a 20-year active duty career, they will almost assuredly have earned a master’s before retiring. In 2014, 41.3 percent of all active duty military officers had an advanced degree, compared with only 12 percent of the general population.
But although enlisted service members — privates, seamen, airmen, sergeants, and petty officers — aren’t required to have a college degree, many do. Many more are working towards one while serving.
Part of the uneducated myth grows from the Vietnam era, where for a time, being enrolled in college earned one a deferment from the draft. But the draft ended in 1973, folks. In 2014, 92.1 percent of the more than one million enlisted active duty service members had a high school diploma or some college, while 6.1 percent held a bachelor’s degree.
While those numbers may seem low, keep in mind that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, among the entire population, only 88 percent have a high school diploma, 59 percent have some college, and only 33 percent have a bachelor’s degree. So your average enlisted soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine is doing better than his or her civilian counterparts.
Going to school while serving, and afterwards
Add to that the fact that each enlisted member can, if they choose, use of to $4,500 of tuition assistance annually to take college courses, and anyone who has served on active duty for at least 90 days (other than for training) after September 11, 2001, is eligible for at least some college money from the Department of Veterans Affairs through the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.
Once an individual has served on active duty for a total of 36 months, they are eligible for the full benefit, which pays the cost of an undergraduate degree at a state college or university, plus a housing allowance. Many private universities offer extra incentives, such as the Yellow Ribbon Scholarship, which make up the difference between the G.I. Bill’s benefits and the school’s tuition.
Since the program began in 2009, more than 773,000 veterans or family members have received a benefit through this program.
I could go on forever about the super talented and well-educated soldiers of all ranks I served with throughout my career. But I’ll leave it at this: hiring a veteran means hiring a dedicated, motivated, smart employee who knows how to solve problems and get the job done.
