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This time of year, high school seniors open their mailboxes very carefully. Be it an email inbox or a curbside postbox, they cock their heads back as if protecting their faces from flying shrapnel. With one eye shut and trembling hands, they open new mail, fearing they’ll be maimed.
What, pray tell, is this vicious beast from which seniors flinch? College decision letters, of course.
Even though college admissions teams try to hide messages among flowery phraseology (e.g., “Most Esteemed Applicant: After convening a council of considerable gravitas, we have completed our annual ritual of deliberation. Your application soared as a radiant comet across our universe. However, the constellations of capacity and circumstance have aligned in such a way that we are unable to extend to you a place within our academic dominion at this time.”), college rejection letters puncture vital organs like shotgun blasts, leaving recipients mortally wounded.
On the other hand, college acceptance letters mimic instant shots of adrenaline, causing recipients to jump, dance, giggle, pant and faint with happiness before they’ve had a chance to notice the massive tuition bills.
All high school seniors applying to colleges are subject to these emotional extremes; however, for many military brats and their parents, there’s an additional beast lurking beyond those college acceptances — finances.
Unless you’ve won the lottery, you’re worried about paying for college. Additionally, you’re concerned about military issues affecting your college finances such as proving residency, qualifying for discounts and aid and tapping into federal benefits.
To fund our three children at private colleges, one might think my husband and I worked night shifts at 7-Eleven and moved into a cardboard box under an overpass to get by. Not so. Instead, our family used a combination of my Navy husband’s military-related benefits, school financial aid, scholarship grants, private loans and federal student loan funding. We applied for everything under the sun, including our base Spouses Club scholarships, Military Officers Association of America student loans and grants, DECA-Fisher House scholarships and local Rotary Club scholarships.
It’s a lot for the typical busy military family to manage, but with patience, prompt filing, hard work and good record keeping, it’s entirely doable, especially if the colleges you are considering are supportive to military veterans and their dependents who wish to enroll.
These schools are referred to as being “veteran friendly” or “military friendly,” but both terms refer to colleges and universities that put extra resources in place to help military veterans and other military-connected students. Our three children went to colleges that were very military friendly, and we found this extremely helpful when seeking assistance with paying tuition bills using several sources of funding. Both schools had special military offices on campus, where staff were dedicated to handling GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon benefits as well as other aid, loans and scholarships for military-connected students.
MilitaryTimes.com publishes an annual “Best for Vets” list of colleges, using survey data analyzing military student success metrics, the range of military-specific resources, the level of financial assistance offered to military students, and other factors. The list contains 357 U.S. colleges, each with specific information about military programs, statistics and services.
MilitaryFriendly.com maintains an extensive list of post-secondary schools rated for military friendliness. Military students can search the list using criteria such as “G.I.Bill approved,” “Yellow Ribbon Participant,” “Campus Learning,” “Online/Remote Learning,” and military-friendly awards.
Even Ivy League schools have tried to become military friendly. For example, Brown University banished ROTC from its campus during Vietnam War protests, and didn’t invite it back until 2016, establishing the “Office of Military Affiliated Students” and offering veteran scholarship funding.
However, the Ivies’ efforts may have come too late. On February 27, War Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a ban on Pentagon-funded military students from attending many top-ranked schools beginning 2026-2027, including Brown, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale due to “anti-American resentment and military disdain.”
This college decision season, you may approach your mailbox with caution, but as long as you focus on military-friendly colleges, you’ll have reinforcements to slay the beast.
Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com
