Imagine you listened to me up until this point.  You have mad technical skills, a $40K investment portfolio yielding $1,000.00 a month, a three-bedroom house near base with two rooms rented out, and a lot of time on your hands, with no need to get a job.

Why?  Because your investment is likely paying your mortgage and your rental income is paying for your food.

If I know you, after having served for six years, that is not a life you’d want to be living, but let’s at least agree, you are precisely where you wanted to be; financially independent.  

At this stage we would all be confronted by reality.  Gainful employment is only about the money until you have all your bases covered.  Once you do have all your bases covered, you’ll realize you want to make a contribution, live a meaningful life.  

Looking around us, there are obviously plenty of people who don’t, but that is only because they are convinced they will never be financially independent.  People like that are masters of rhetorical economics.  

After six years in the Army you are a master of applied economics.  You got the require less part down and decide to also earn more.  You decide adding a professional certificate or even a college degree would give you an even greater advantage in the market.

Going to college at this point is not financially irresponsible because the Army will pay upwards of $65,000 in tuition to the school of your choice.  Getting into the school of your choice is not guaranteed, but with a six-year Army career on your resume, and $65,000.00 of your rich Uncle’s money on the table, not many colleges or universities are likely to turn you down. 

Every veteran attending a major college or university is a relief to their financial foundations.  One less scholarship to hand out is one less scholarship to hand out.  I believe I made my point.  Veterans are a no fail prospect for colleges and universities for the same reasons veterans are a no fail opportunity for banks.

Just do NOT go directly to a four-year college or university.    Scroll up and read all of the above carefully.  You just watched your friends waste two years of premium tuition at a four-year school fulfilling their “general education requirements”.  You can check off all those boxes at any community college for a dime on the dollar.

Listen to me and save tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.  Complete your general education requirements at a local community college, then transfer to a four-year school of your choice.

If you are worried that, after attending a community college you’ll never get into the four-year school of your choice, that is just your camp counselor talking.  I mean high school counselor.

I dropped out of high school three times and still got into U.C. Berkeley.  I applied to Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley and Colgate, but only got into Berkeley and Colgate.  How?  

I was accepted at two of the most prestigious schools in the nation because the Army taught me how to identify and acquire knowledge.  After returning to civilian life with a marketable skill, you return to civilian life with the ability to acquire any marketable skill you want.

Count to three.  I repeat.  I dropped out of high school three times.  Three times in and out the door and not one administrator or counselor so much as asked me why.  The Army taught me children don’t fail school.  Schools fail children.

Mind you, service in the Armed Forces today requires a high school diplomacy or GED, just don’t look down your nose at a GED.  And certainly don’t conclude you can’t pass the GED just because you didn’t graduate high school.  I didn’t graduate and every school I applied to knew it.  They just didn’t care because, after serving just three years on Active Duty, my GPA at my community college was 3.9.

I know, your camp counselors have you convinced your entire life will be determined by how you do in high school.  You were lied to.  What they are also not telling you is that you don’t have to drop out.  You can walk out.  Just take the GED test.  If you pass, you are no longer obligated to go to high school.   

That is what I did.  I was still too young to join the Army, but they reserved a spot for me in Basic Training for when I was.  Once in the ranks, I finally received an education.  I learned that learning was an intelligence operation.  

My discovery was only possible because the United States Army taught me how to learn.