Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill into law Wednesday, giving University of Wisconsin system student veterans the benefit of instate tuition after living in the state that already qualifies for Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs entitlements.
The old law stated students who were called up from the reserves or national guard to serve active duty would have to have resided in the state for a year before receiving the tuition break, disregarding any time a student would be studying at UW. Now, veterans can count time while participating classes at UW or if they lived in Wisconsin 90 days before deployment.
This legislation, introduced by State Rep. Mark Pettis, R-Hertel, Feb. 19, is a result of a 20-year-old UW freshman Amanda Gino’s complaints about the high cost of her education. Gino, a veteran who served in Iraq and Kuwait, moved to Wisconsin in 2001 from Hawaii to live with her aunt in Appleton and then activated.
“I was just venting … to this guy at work (Vets for Vets) … and he ended up knowing the right people to make things happen,” Gino said.
Her friend at work, UW Vets for Vets advisor Chuck Goranson thought her story, having to pay the out-of-state tuition prices, was definitely something to be concerned about. He called his representative friend Pettis, who he said did an incredible amount of work to get the bill passed before the session ended in March.
“The ball started rolling very fast,” Goranson said. “It normally takes a year for legislation to pass; this took about three weeks to squeak through.”
Goranson added support for this legislation was “incredible,” and all of the legislators thought such a law should already be in place.
“At the state capitol, one of my top priorities has been working on legislation that supports our service men and women during and after their time in the military,” Pettis said in a release. “Wisconsin prides itself on being one of the best states in the nation for veterans to live in.”
Gino was also very pleased with the outcome and said she expects to get a partial refund of her tuition from the spring semester.
“I feel great, obviously,” Gino said of the legislation. “It’s going to help more people than just me, too.”
Gino also said UW now has to start addressing issues of returning veterans that are typically college-student age.
“I guess the university [is now] dealing with so many young kids that are now considered veterans,” Gino said, adding the number is only going to increase with the return of those deployed from the Iraq War. She also said, even to many young veterans, veteran issues are most commonly thought of as concerns of people who served in Vietnam where health care and retirement are topics of discussion. This sentiment is one that Goranson is very concerned with, even though veterans often receive a lot of political leverage.
“There’s nobody around speaking for veterans just getting out of service,” he said, adding some things still need to be addressed.
