Styron's Chance.

• Author: STARR, ALEXANDRA
• Position: Education finance reforms

There have been promising innovations to help pay for college, but none match the GI Bill.

In Sophie's choice, William Styron's 22-year-old alter-ego is summarily laid off from his job at a New York publishing house. But despite his near-penniless state, the young man is elated at the possibilities of the future. "I ... had the freedom of the world spread out before me," he writes. Styron is not the only young man to have been gripped by excitement as he made his way in the world. But for the hundreds of thousands of graduates who leave school saddled with debt, their enthusiasms are tempered by the prospect of paying back more money than most have ever laid eyes on. Styron's blithe outlook was probably due in no small part to the fact that he attended Duke University on the GI Bill. Not only was his tuition paid for; he also received a $75 monthly allowance, which could go a long way in the 1940s.

Styron was just one of the 2.2 million veterans who attended college on the World War II scholarship. Many of them would never have set foot on a university campus without the federal grant, and their lives (not to mention American society) were turned upside down by Uncle Sam's investment. Armed with their B.A.s, these graduates entered careers in the sciences, arts, public policy, and business. They formed the bulwark of the growing American middle class. Styron is not the only illustrious graduate to have profited from government largesse: John Chancellor, former Justice Byron White, and Clint Eastwood were GI recipients, too. As Peter Drucker wrote in Post-Capitalist Society, "future historians may regard [the GI Bill] as the most important event of the 20th century."

Today, as the gap between the haves and have-nots in our society grows into a chasm, a college education is becoming more important than ever before. The GI Bill, however, was the last great investment the United States made in higher education. College aid has drifted from a grant-based program to a loan-based system. In the '70s two-thirds of all financing came in the form of grants; today, two-thirds comes in the form of loans. (If the significance of this trend is lost on you, consider the difference between being given a house and having someone loan you the money to buy one.) Meanwhile, university tuitions imploded: Between 1981 and 1995, the cost of attending even traditionally affordable public colleges shot up 234 percent, nearly three times as fast as median household income. College is increasingly beyond the reach of low-income students, and middle class families are finding their backs pushed against the wall as well.

There is, however, a silver lining in this storm cloud. While the federal government hasn't confronted the college cost crunch head on, legislation aimed at making higher education more affordable has sprung up at the national and state level. Funding for Pell Grants, which provide aid to the neediest families, inched up last year. In 1993 Georgia began dispensing scholarships to students who maintain a B average in high school. The Clinton administration revamped the student loan system, leading to improved service for kids. And the government is allowing students the option of paying back their loans as a percentage of their income, which should allow beneficiaries more flexibility in their career choices. Certainly, none of these innovations match the generous package Styron was entitled to as a former GI. But they lighten the load of newly-minted college graduates. And that gives these kids a chance to see the world the way Styron did: thrilled rather than cowed by the twists the future could take, eager to make their mark at a young age.

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