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Severely Injured Military Veterans: Fulfilling Their Dreams

When veterans with severe injuries return to civilian life, they face difficult transitions and often lose the convenience of direct access to the government's educational support programs.

Severely Injured Military Veterans: Fulfilling Their Dreams provides direct support to these veterans and their families by helping them align their career goals with educational opportunity.

Academic Advising

The program begins while the service member is recovering at one of three military facilities: Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, MD; Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC; and Camp Pendleton Wounded Warrior Battalion West in San Diego, CA.

At the hospitals, service members are introduced to academic advisors and develop customized educational plans. A veteran in the program may elect to pursue high school equivalency and certificate programs, two-year degrees, baccalaureate and graduate degrees, or post-graduate study. Participants include first-time students, first-generation students, and returning students.

Advisers work with veterans to identify educational resources and programs that will help them achieve their goals, suggest strategies to help them be successful students, and show them how to avoid possible pitfalls, such as diploma and accreditation mills.

Campus Advocacy

The combination of individualized advising and campus advocacy has proven to be extraordinarily effective in providing assistance to severely injured veterans and their family members to assure that our nation's heroes can fulfill their dream of going to college. Each participant is matched with a volunteer from the college or university where the member plans to attend. This campus advocate provides sources of information, encouragement and advocacy in areas ranging from academics to campus culture. Volunteers include students, faculty or administrators who are veterans themselves, while others are family members of veterans or those who are interested in serving those who serve. Working in partnership with other organizations, the project fills the void that occurs when the service member is released from active duty and begins the transition from the battlefield to the classroom.

From Battlefield to Classroom and Beyond

Formally launched on April 2, 2007, the program has helped more than 450 military personnel severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families transition to college and civilian life.

The program is intended to ensure that our nation's heroes receive the full support of the higher education community as they find a path to pursue their own hopes and dreams.

Severely Injured Military Veterans: Fulfilling Their Dreams is funded with private donations.

Please direct questions about this page to:
siproject@ace.nche.edu
This page last updated on 10/20/2009