[eghad]

You're going to need to provide a source for your claims that 0% graduate. A handful of my classmates from Carnegie Mellon were veterans (some with trauma) and all graduated within the typical timeline. The NVEST report from 2017 on student veterans [0][1] show an approximate 54% graduation rate within 6 years (18% were still enrolled, 28% dropped out) greater than the general averages. While the washout rate for 2 year programs is particularly high, your idea that retraining isn't achievable is flawed.

[0]https://nvest.studentveterans.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03... [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/why-is...

[Alex3917]

Hmm apparently I'm just wrong. I could have sworn there was a Wired article about this from a few years ago, but I can't find any evidence of it online or in my notes or in my previous HN comments.

[chillacy]

If they got into CMU they're already the cream of the crop. The low rate covers all the other people who never made it to CMU, dropped out of the labor force and got onto disability.

[DuskStar]

The NVEST numbers (54%) include everyone though.

[chillacy]

I see, I missed the part where it was veterans. I'm not informed enough to know why that program's success is so much higher than the ~37% success for manufacturing workers or Michigan's No Worker Left Behind (30% unemployment vs 40% for those not retrained).

If I had to guess, it could be because vets are younger and more able to learn new things, or it could also be that measuring graduation rates is different than measuring employment (plenty of college grads don't find employment in their field of study).