[The US military has a long history of recruiting poor people by
offering benefits like free college. With Joe Biden’s partial
student debt forgiveness, GOP war hawks are fretting that the military
won’t be able to prey on desperate young Americans anymore.]
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STUDENT DEBT RELIEF IS UNDERMINING THE MILITARY’S PREDATORY
RECRUITING PRACTICES  
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Jordan Uhl
August 30, 2022
Jacobin
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_ The US military has a long history of recruiting poor people by
offering benefits like free college. With Joe Biden’s partial
student debt forgiveness, GOP war hawks are fretting that the military
won’t be able to prey on desperate young Americans anymore. _

US Army recruits with the New Jersey National Guard perform physical
training in Sea Girt, New Jersey, October 19, 2019., New Jersey
National Guard / Flickr

 

Amid a brutal year for military recruiting, conservative war hawks are
openly fretting that President Joe Biden’s announcement last week of
a one-time means-tested student debt cancellation will undercut the
military’s ability to prey on desperate young Americans.

“Student loan forgiveness undermines one of our military’s
greatest recruitment tools at a time of dangerously low
enlistments,” Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) tweeted shortly after
the announcement.

In the six years since Banks first ran for Congress, he has taken more
than $400,000 from defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, and
other major players in the military-industrial complex. Corporate
political action committees for Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE
Systems, L3Harris Technologies, and Ultra Electronics have each
donated tens of thousands of dollars to Banks, according to Federal
Election Commission (FEC) data analyzed
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by OpenSecrets. He now sits on the House Armed Services Committee,
which oversees the Department of Defense and United States military.

Members of the committee have already collectively received more than
$3.4 million
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defense contractors and weapons manufacturers this election cycle.

Banks’s admission highlights the way the student debt crisis has
been exploited by the military-industrial complex. By saying the quiet
part out loud, Banks is finally speaking the truth about how military
recruiters use the GI Bill — the 1944 law that awards a robust
benefits package to veterans — as a remedy for the cost of higher
education to convince young people to enlist.

“To have members of Congress openly imply that the answer to this is
to actually _exacerbate_ hardship for poor and working-class youth
is, actually, the best thing for young Americans to see,” Mike
Prysner [[link removed]], an antiwar veteran and
activist, told the_ Lever_. “It proves their reasons for not
joining are totally valid. Why allow yourself to be chewed up and spit
out in service of a system that cares so little for you and your well
being?”
Biden’s initiative
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cancel up to $10,000 of federal student loan debt for people who make
under $125,000 annually, plus an additional $10,000 for these
borrowers who received a Pell Grant in college. The program is
estimated to eliminate roughly $300 billion in total debt, reducing
the outstanding student debt nationwide from $1.7 trillion to $1.4
trillion.

According to the College Board’s 2021 Trends in College Pricing and
Student Aid report
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the average cost for annual tuition and fees at public four-year
colleges has risen from $4,160 to $10,740 since the early 1990s — a
158 percent increase. At private institutions, average costs have
increased 96.6 percent during that same period, from $19,360 to
$38,070.

Biden’s student debt cancellation plan was for the most part
celebrated in liberal circles as a step in the right direction,
although many pointed out that debt forgiveness needed to go much
further to address the nationwide crisis.

“If Young Americans Can Access Free College… Will They Volunteer
for the Armed Forces?”

Banks’s communications director, Buckley Carlson (son of
conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson), did not respond to a
request for comment — but the congressman’s comments reflect a
popular mindset among Army brass and conservative hawks.

In 2019, Frank Muth, the general in charge of Army
recruitment, boasted
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the student debt emergency played a primary role in his branch
exceeding its recruiting goal that year. “One of the national crises
right now is student loans, so $31,000 is [about] the average,” said
Muth. “You can get out [of the Army] after four years, 100 percent
paid for state college anywhere in the United States.”

Cole Lyle, former adviser to Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and executive
director of Mission Roll Call, a veterans advocacy group, penned an
op-ed
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for Fox News in May calling student debt forgiveness a “slap in the
face” to veterans because service members and veterans were
purportedly more deserving of debt relief than the average civilian.

Lyle’s piece was shared
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late Representative Jackie Walorski (R-IN), who also argued
forgiveness would “undermine military recruiting.” Mollie
Hemingway
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in chief of conservative outlet the_ Federalist,_ and the big-oil
front group Citizens Against Government Waste
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shared the piece as well.

In April, Eric Leis, a former department manager
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Training Command, Great Lakes, bemoaned
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in the _Wall Street Journal_ that debt forgiveness — and especially
lowering the cost of higher education — poses a threat to the
military’s ability to recruit.

“When I worked at Navy boot camp, an overwhelming majority of
recruits listed paying for college as their primary motivator for
joining the Navy. If young Americans can access free college without
having to earn the GI Bill or sign up for follow-on military service,
will they volunteer for the armed forces in adequate
numbers?” wrote
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Leis.

Banks’s recent statement on the matter elicited
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from antiwar activists on Twitter — largely because it laid bare the
military’s predatory recruiting practices and exploitation of
vulnerable people who desperately need economic aid.

“According to Rep. Banks, any relief regarding jobs, health care,
childcare, housing, food, should be opposed on the basis it would hurt
enlistment!” said Prysner. “While mocked, it does reveal the core
of the Pentagon’s recruitment strategy: focus primarily on young
people who feel pushed into the ranks by the difficulties of American
life.”

“It Feels Like a Bait and Switch”

Banks’s criticism comes during a tough year for military recruiting.
The military is seeing its lowest number of recruits in the current
fiscal year since the end of the draft in 1973, the military news
outlet _Stars and Stripes_ reported
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last week.

Earlier in August, the Army admitted
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it had only successfully recruited half its goal and is poised to miss
its target by around 48 percent
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military branches have also struggled
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hit their annual goals, but according to _Stars and Stripes, _these
forces_ _are expected to just reach their target numbers by the end
of the fiscal year next month.

But as Prysner points out, such recruitment struggles have nothing to
do with college becoming easier to afford.

“According to the most recent [Department of Defense] youth poll,
their top reasons are fear of physical and psychological wounds, fear
of sexual assault, and a growing dislike of the military,” said
Prysner.

The Department of Defense’s program for Joint Advertising, Market
Research & Studies (JAMRS) conducts polls to gauge young Americans’
opinions of the United States military.

The most recent poll, released earlier in August, found a majority of
respondents — 65 percent — would not join the military because of
the possibility of injury or death, while 63 percent cited
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other emotional or
psychological issues.

According to the same poll, the top reason why young Americans
considered enlisting was to increase potential future pay, while
educational benefits, such as those offered by the GI Bill, were the
second most common reason for enlisting.

The public has become increasingly critical of the military, thanks in
part to a lack of a national cause to rally behind, no looming
presence of a serious external threat, and growing discontent with the
American system. Some of that negativity has come from within the
Armed Forces’ own ranks. In 2020, a video of active duty Army
soldiers expressing frustration over their recruiters lying to them
racked up millions of views. The clip illustrated how many young
Americans are lied to in hopes that they’ll become pawns for the
military industrial complex.

To boost its numbers, the military has a long
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and well-documented
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history of targeting
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the economically disadvantaged
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enticing potential recruits with its robust benefits package. Earlier
this year, the Army released new ads
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specifically touting how service can fill holes in the country’s
tattered safety net. Antiwar veteran groups and other peace advocates
warn young people to be wary of the military’s recruitment tactics,
especially its education benefits. While the GI Bill could potentially
cover a majority of a recruit’s education, its benefits are not
guaranteed [[link removed]].

“Even with the G.I. bill and tuition assistance, a lot of veterans
end up with student debt anyway, and that’s what they really don’t
tell you,” said political commentator and Air Force veteran Ben
Carollo. “I think it speaks to how predatory military recruiting is.
Because really it takes layers of lies.”

Beyond education, veterans still have to fight for many necessary
benefits. Recently, Senate Republicans blocked a bill
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would allow for military veterans to receive treatment through the
Department of Veterans Affairs for medical issues — including cancer
— caused by burn pits overseas, before begrudgingly supporting
it after immense public pressure
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Carollo said she bought into the lies when she enlisted.

She, like many other Americans, saw the US military as “the good
guys” who brought “freedom” around the world. She eventually
came to see through the American exceptionalist fantasy and the false
promise of benefits waiting for veterans.

“Sadly I had to learn these lessons the hard way and came out with a
disability and trauma that now limits my ability to really use the
degree I did get,” said Carollo. “Ultimately it feels like a bait
and switch. The idea that we should keep people poor just to maintain
that scam speaks to how evil our system is.”

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* Student Debt and Military Recruitment; G.I. Bill and Student
Recruitment;
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