Community colleges strive to fulfill the unique needs of military service members, veterans and their families, a mission harkening back to wartime and the decades in which the nation's fighters were off the battlefield. Educating the nation's servicemen and women has long been a core undertaking of many community colleges, particularly in regions…

To blame was a formula in the new GI Bill that provides funding equivalent to the highest-priced postsecondary undergraduate institution in the state. Because California's public schools have traditionally charged "fees" for services and not traditional tuition, many veterans attempting to attend California colleges were excluded from…