Mike Parson claims to support veterans. Why is Missouri breaking its promise to them? | Opinion
The evening of Aug. 4, 2011, was the first time I got shot at. I was sitting in the guard tower of my platoon’s outpost in remote southern Afghanistan. We had just spent the day patrolling a few nearby villages. As the rest of the platoon bedded down for the night, it was my turn for guard duty. As the sunset faded into darkness, the desert sky lit up with automatic machine gun fire. Writing about it today, I can still see the flash, feel the concussion and hear the cracks as the bullets flew past my head that night.
For my actions that day, I was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Army’s combat medal for infantrymen. Little did I know that this singular event, which would change my life in a number of different ways, would one day entitle me to huge help furthering my education back home in Missouri — and lead me down a rabbit hole of broken government promises.
In 2019, Gov. Mike Parson signed an expansion to the Missouri Returning Heroes Education Act. This law (originally passed in 2008) entitles combat veterans to a 70% tuition reduction in graduate level courses at Missouri public universities so long as they are Missouri residents and were awarded a combat medal. Parson signed the expansion alongside a host of veterans from different generations and foreign wars. He had no problem soaking up the publicity that came with declaring to fight for Missouri’s veterans in 2019. As it turns out, he has a huge problem with actually funding the very law he signed.
As the 2023 legislative session drew to a close, the budget committee sent a final draft of the 2023-24 budget to the governor’s desk for approval. For the first time since the Missouri Returning Heroes Education Act was passed in 2008, the General Assembly included funding for it in the budget. Parson line-item vetoed $600,000 from the budget that would have gone toward repaying Missouri’s public universities money owed for this veterans program.
Why on Earth would our governor veto funding for a bill he signed into law to support veterans? His statement read: “This veto will not impact the tuition paid by veterans who qualify for the Returning Heroes program in any way.” Guess what, Governor? It does.
Given that our conservative-majority lawmakers (who consistently claim to be champions of veterans and their benefits) have failed for 15 years to fund the Missouri Returning Heroes Education Act, public universities have been eating the cost of tuition reduction for veterans without reimbursement. It’s no surprise then that public universities do not publicize this opportunity to their students who are combat veterans. In fact, the university I attend as a graduate student actively takes measures to hide the program from students. According to the school’s director of financial aid, the state of Missouri “owes the university $144,000 over the past 10 years.”
Like many other combat veterans, I had no idea the Missouri Returning Heroes Education Act existed when I enrolled in graduate school last fall. This is not by accident. If we knew this was a benefit, we would take advantage of it. But every time a veteran uses it, the state’s public universities lose money that they should be receiving from our legislature.
Had our supposed “veteran supporting” leaders done their jobs and gotten Parson’s buy-in last session, the university would have agreed to give me back the amount that should have been reduced from my tuition payments. Since my school is once again not receiving funding from the legislature this year, it refuses to refund me. That amount that I am owed totals more than $4,000.
To the governor, elected officials in the General Assembly, college presidents and finance directors: The cost of my graduate tuition is a drop in the bucket. It wouldn’t even come close to affecting your annual salaries, your operating budgets or your slush funds. But to a disabled combat veteran, a public school teacher and a father trying to support his family — that money means a lot.
This Nov. 11, Gov. Parson and members of the Missouri General Assembly can spare us their obligatory “Thank you for your service” tweets. If you’re really thankful for our service, and if you really consider us returning heroes, fund the bill that you signed into law.