The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), previously named the Veterans Administration, has been providing veterans educational assistance (GI Bill®) benefits since 1944. The benefits have been intended, at various times, to compensate for compulsory service, encourage voluntary service, prevent unemployment, provide equitable benefits to all…

In many parts of the United States, there is a growing shortage of music teachers to take the place of the retiring teachers. This is most evident in rural areas. If music teachers are not available to fill openings, music positions are sometimes combined, spreading music teachers too thin and requiring them to possess multiple music…

The Montgomery GI Bill--Selected Reserve (MGIB--SR, or chapter 1606 of title 10, U.S. Code) is an educational assistance program enacted by Congress to attract high quality men and women into the reserve branch of the Armed Forces. This program is for members of the Selected Reserve of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and…

Citizen Schools is an apprenticeship program offered outside school hours that seeks to build students' academic and leadership skills by connecting them with professionals from various fields. Launched in Boston in 1994, the program targets what some say is an underserved population in after-school education--middle school students--through a…

Better Jobs for Women (BJW) is an outreach program designed to place women in apprenticeships or similar unsubsidized on-the-job training programs in the skilled trade occupations. Among the first of its kind in the country, the Denver program has completed six years of operation and has placed over 400 women in more than fifty different skilled…