Giving Compass' Take:

• Brian Mockenhaupt explains why veterans in elite colleges make up a meager percentage of students and the difficulties in getting more veterans enrolled at Ivy League schools.

• How does funding work differently for veterans in college? How can colleges address these disparities in student population?

• Read about how the liberal arts can help veterans thrive. 

The ink starts at Sam Fendler’s left wrist and winds up his arm, a tableau of his life before college that begins with a block of text. Fendler figures he might be the only student at Princeton University with a full sleeve tattoo. He’s also among the school’s very few veterans.

In his two years at Penn State before transferring to Princeton this fall, he rarely mentioned his military service. But he’s been more open about it at Princeton, which has 12 veterans, up from just one three years ago. In his sociology class, the Western Way of War, he felt it might add to the conversation.

Many state universities and community colleges have large veteran populations and robust programs to recruit veterans and help them adjust to college life. But at the nation’s most selective schools, where most students follow the traditional pipeline from high school to a degree within four years — and from which many go on to leadership roles in government and industry — veterans like Fendler are an anomaly.

Though America’s top institutions are trying to increase this population, who bring with them not only a unique perspective on the world but also, collectively, millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded GI Bill benefits, veterans still make up well under 1 percent of the undergraduates on most of these campuses.

Veterans advocates argue that those who volunteered to serve in the military should have the chance to attend the nation’s best schools if they qualify, and that their presence boosts diversity and adds to the richness of campus life.

Now more schools appear to be trying to show that veterans do matter to them, but boosting their numbers hasn’t been easy. With application criteria often based on test scores, grade-point averages and extracurricular activities, admissions officers often don’t know how to account for military experience.

Read the full article about veterans in college by Brian Mockenhaupt at The Hechinger Report.