2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Student veterans have a unique opportunity to pursue higher education post-discharge via successive offerings of the G.I. Bill program. Academic program preferences for veteran students have important implications across an organizational field where attention has sharpened on student matriculation, persistence, and retention. Some student veterans may pursue an engineering degree while others may earn a two- or four-year engineering technology degree. Student veterans should be aware of differences in these degrees and the career opportunities in each. Some may put their technical military experience to use in higher education, while others may pursue a radically different educational path. There are numerous activities and processes employed both before student veterans arrive and during their time on campus to ensure they are part of the campus community and to ensure they graduate with an engineering or engineering technology degree within their timeline. These efforts can create a culture of open communication with student veterans and increase engagement of these students with faculty, engineering professionals, and peers to matriculate them into the campus engineering community.