President Bush in his recent State of the Union message drew applause when he supported the transfer of GI education funding for members of the service to their spouses and their children. If the veteran chooses not to use the help or is unable to do so, for one reason or another, family members can benefit. That is a highly commendable policy.

Yet high-sounding as that might be, today’s GI Bill education benefits for armed forces people fall pitifully short of what they should be. This troubling development and how some steps are being taken to remedy it are the subject of an article in the Baltimore Sun by Finn M.W. Caspersen, chairman of the board of the Hodson Trust. Notes Caspersen:

“Today’s combat veterans encounter a GI Bill whose stinginess would have been unimaginable to their grandparents (from the days of the original GI Bill in the 1940s). It is sad to chart how far it has fallen and how inadequate are its benefits. Gone are the glory days of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the formal name of the GI Bill. That enabled millions of servicemen back from World War II to enter the hitherto largely inaccessible world of higher education. The GI Bill helped make the ‘Greatest Generation’ great, paving the way for prosperity and the postwar boom years and permanently lowering the barriers to American higher education. Nearly 8 million veterans filled the nation’s classrooms thanks to its benefits.”

That 1944 program, devised by Kansan Harry Colmery of the American Legion, not only educated millions who otherwise might not have been able to afford schooling. It also provided countless low-interest loans to spawn home-building, had a vocational education program for tradespeople and offered a year of $20-a-week relief for those who had trouble finding jobs or getting readjusted. Total original cost: $14 billion, pocket change in today’s government world.

Caspersen notes that the GI Bill still exists but in a form now known as the “Montgomery GI Bill.” It still offers education benefits, but to get any tuition aid from Uncle Sam, the veteran agrees in advance to a monthly deduction from his or her meager paycheck. Even worse, says Caspersen, the benefit is just a fraction of what is needed to meet today’s tuition costs. Reservists who have returned from the battlefield earn even less than enlisted soldiers. Prompt new readjustments are needed.

The grandparents of today’s veterans went to college free of tuition payments and free of the demanding tuition-generated debt that most of today’s veterans are forced to absorb.

Some in Congress have tried to address this disparity with no luck. But help may come from other sources, such as the private sector. The Hodson Trust headed by Caspersen provides full scholarships to Maryland veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to attend one of the four Maryland colleges the trust has long supported: Johns Hopkins, Hood College, St. John’s College and Washington College.

While the private sector can help, the government needs to do much more. Our society is light-years better off than it might have been without the 1944 GI Bill. Today’s returning veterans deserve the same benefits.

President Bush might draw even more applause by doing something more substantial in this category.