At Wisconsin colleges, 'big wave' of veteran families is raising costs – The Capital Times

At Wisconsin colleges, ‘big wave’ of veteran families is raising costs  The Capital Times

Grace Lemke stood on the field at Camp Randall Stadium during a Badgers football game with her parents last fall, helping to hold a giant American flag in honor of military service members and veterans. “(My parents) talk about it all the time to this day,” said Lemke, now a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lemke’s dad is an Army veteran. Thanks to his service, she knew exactly how she would pay to attend Wisconsin’s flagship public university and pursue a degree in consumer behavior and marketplace studies. “For my dad to be able to provide that to me through his (veterans) benefits has definitely made a big difference, and there is a lot of pride there, for sure,” said Lemke, the first person in her family to attend college.

Under a law known as the Wisconsin GI Bill, tuition remission helps eligible veterans and their children and spouses attend the state’s public universities and colleges. The program covers tuition and some fees for 128 credits or eight semesters, whichever is longer. State lawmakers created the program two decades ago, amid the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Wisconsinites who deployed were returning to the state around the time, needing to launch their careers, said Layla Merrifield, president of the Wisconsin Technical College System. “It was a way to kind of