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Why Some Student Veterans Fall Behind in Your Classroom and How Faculty Can Help
HigherEdMilitary
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You have probably met this student veteran. Early to class, sat in the front row, or their syllabus was already filled with notes. For about a month, they were your strongest contributor.
Then it stops. Assignments arrive late. Their seat sits empty for a few sessions. Your emails go unanswered.
The easy conclusion is that they lost interest or couldn't handle the rigor. Both are usually wrong. They are inside a system they do not yet understand, and far more likely to hide that struggle than to disclose it. The gap between what you may assume about student veterans and what is happening in their lives is exactly where capable students fall through.
Back to the Classroom
The veteran in your course may not have been inside a classroom in several years. They spent those years in an environment built on the opposite of academic life: rigid hierarchy, external accountability, unambiguous expectations, and immediate feedback.
Higher education asks student veterans to operate in reverse. The structure is self-directed, expectations are implicit, feedback arrives weeks later, and no one checks whether they did the reading. For veterans who were injured on the job is even harder; the demands of reintegration lengthened the time to earn a degree.
Their self-discipline from military service is real. Self-discipline applied to an unfamiliar system doesn't automatically produce a passing grade.
The Benefits Student Veterans Use Can Impact Student Success
Student veterans may be utilizing the Post-9/11 GI Bill®, Chapter 33, an earned benefit for faithful service and the most-used VA educational benefit, with almost 600,000 beneficiaries in fiscal year 2024. No one on the VA side is assigned to notice whether a student is thriving or drowning in higher education.
Veteran Readiness and Employment (VR&E), Chapter 31, is different. It is a rehabilitation and employment program, tied to a service-connected disability. Education is not the sole focus of the program but can be an educational tool. A vocational rehabilitation counselor (VRC) determines whether schooling or retraining is warranted for an employment goal, then builds an individualized plan around that goal. Because the plan is built around a career objective, a veteran cannot casually switch fields or degree programs. Student veterans changing direction means renegotiating the plan with their counselor. VR&E served about 150,000 beneficiaries in 2024, roughly one for every four GI Bill users.
What This Means
GI Bill students have flexibility, but no one in a support role on the VA side. The VR&E group has a counselor assigned, which on paper is the support a struggling student needs. Provided their counselor isn't spread thin with their caseload.
The VA's target caseload is 125 veterans to one counselor, borrowed from state vocational rehabilitation programs. The average caseload is 130 to 141 veterans per counselor from 2013 through 2016, and limited access to counselors remains the program's main weakness. By design, counselor outreach flexes toward need, heavier during evaluation and active training, and lighter once a veteran stabilizes. A student falling behind should, in principle, see their counselor more, not less. But with caseloads well above the target, a counselor's time is limited no matter how the model is drawn. A veteran slipping in week six of your course may not surface until a grade report forces it. For faculty, do not assume a VR&E counselor already knows a student is in trouble, and remember GI Bill students don't have anyone from the VA in that support role at all.
Possible Injuries or Conditions
Many post-military conditions are invisible, like post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), tinnitus/hearing loss, chronic pain, anxiety, and depression.
These conditions can mimic academic failure. Difficulty concentrating in a noisy or crowded classroom can be due to tinnitus or PTSD. Trouble retaining and organizing new material can be TBI. Needing a seat facing the door, or slipping out randomly, can be PTSD. A week of absences can be a pain flare-up or a medication change. You see "missed classes and deadlines." But the student is managing something unrelated to academic capacity.
A VA disability rating is not a campus accommodation. A campus accessibility/disability office may never know of a veterans VA disability rating if the information is not communicated to them.
The VA does not "handle" a veteran's academic disability-related needs. Academic accommodations flow from the campus accessibility/disability office, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. These are a different legal and administrative track from VA benefits. A student does not need any VA rating to qualify for campus accommodations; eligibility rests on a documented condition that limits a major life activity. But the reverse is also true: a veteran with a VA rating gets nothing in your course unless they have registered with your campus office. Many veterans do not know this, and the intake processes campus offices require can become a barrier for someone already reluctant to come forward.
Stigma and Awareness Around Campus Resources
A veteran center coordinator/staff member and/or the school certifying officials (SCO) who report enrollment to the VA are often the first trusted contact a struggling veteran will contact.
Campus resources like accessibility/disability, academic advising, career services, school certifying, or a veterans center only work if the veteran walks through the door, and stigma is only half of what keeps them out. The other half is simpler. Many veterans do not know what accommodations exist or which would actually help them reach their academic goals.
Student veterans describe a "mission mindset" from military self-reliance that pushes them to suppress distress and refuse help until their degree is finished; many resist labels they tie to weakness or victimhood and minimize their needs by comparing themselves to veterans they consider worse off. Help-seeking is thought of as failure. It is not stubbornness. It is a value system that served them well in uniform but can work against them in a setting that rewards asking for help early.
Things You Can Do
1. Make all resources visible to the whole class. Provide a syllabus statement or an early announcement, so no veteran has to ask first. Many veterans transfer credit in, so most of the time they don't enroll as a freshman and don't go through an orientation class. Make disclosure feel safe and routine, this improves the odds that student veterans will come forward.
2. Message privately: "I noticed you've missed a couple of sessions," "I'm willing to work with you," and "Here's where students can get support."
3. Learn one name, not one office. Find a person at the accessibility office, veteran center, or financial aid. A referral to a person is an open door. A referral to an office is a website.
4. Create warm handoffs. Naming an office and hoping they reach out is not a referral. Walk student veterans to the building or send an introduction email with the student copied. Protect their privacy throughout. A disability status is theirs to share, not yours.
5. Frame support as utilitarian, a tool for the mission. Build an incident extension into your syllabus. For instance, if assignments are due on Sunday but you grade on Wednesday, you could offer the opportunity for students to turn in assignments any time before grading, no questions asked.
For each semester you have student veterans enrolled in your courses, you can meet student veterans where they are and set up a dedicated day and time a veterans support staff member will be available to speak with them, if they have not done so already.
The institutions that retain their student veterans are those where someone knew enough to notice signs of stress, and knew how to help that student.
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