by Zach Bigalke

Created on: August 07, 2007   Last Updated: September 09, 2008

When I decided my senior year of high school - or, rather, was forced by parental pressure - to look into colleges for the next academic year, I went through the same paperwork as millions of other American students. Admissions applications (with their exorbitant processing fees), FAFSA forms, grant and scholarship applications...the paperwork was endless. Then the news came back that my family supposedly made a few thousand dollars too many in a year. There went the Pell grants... there went a lot of need-based scholarships... there went my fiscal solvency in an eruption of various student loans, both federally subsidized and entirely private.

My story certainly is not unique. Lots of students dig themselves into debt simply for the piece of paper that is quickly replacing the high-school diploma as the bare essential for meaningful employment. And I think it would be ludicrous to discriminate against the millions of youth whose parents work in the private sector by offering tuition discounts to military families. Under such a plan, if for instance my father would have worked on computers for the United States military instead of a resort in Grand Teton National Park, I would not be in nearly the degree of debt that currently plagues my credit.

Taking such action would have two consequences. First, the continued ineptitude of our military-industrial governance will only stand to grow larger and more wide reaching. We already have many problems with the current state of the American armed forces. Stretched thin by poorly-executed wars on two hostile fronts, the military cannot even train those soldiers already amongst their ranks. The recruiting surge which inevitably would ensue from such actions certainly could not be effectively managed by an already bloated and morally defunct sector of government.

Second, the precedent of discrimination favoring those people who have no moral qualms about killing other nationalities will develop greater credence when the progeny of these soldiers is rewarded for their parents' bloodlust. Children certainly deserve and need college tuition discounts. But every American youth should have this opportunity; setting up a precedent of privilege for the offspring of military personnel is unconstitutional favoritism. In the end, what makes military brats more special and deserving of affordable education than the child of a single mother working three jobs to support her children?

Learn more about this author, Zach Bigalke.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.