Abstract
Demographers are often called upon to project change in public programs and to analyze alternative scenarios based upon proposed changes to public policy. In response, methods must be found to adequately prepare research despite limitations in time, data, and information. This chapter describes one such project completed to estimate the number of potential participants in a state-specific program to help veterans and their dependents obtain college degrees or technical credentials. We use the Hamilton-Perry method to prepare projections of veterans and veteran dependents as a basis for projecting the change in the use of a Texas specific educational benefit for veterans and dependents – the Hazlewood Exemption. We then use these projections of Hazlewood participants as well as estimates of the characteristics of veterans and veteran households to analyze the impacts of proposals for managing the future use of the Hazlewood Exemption. Despite recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the size of the United States military is much smaller than it was during the Vietnam and Cold War eras which will lead to a smaller veteran population as older cohorts of veterans age and die. The analysis indicates that the age characteristics of these veterans as well as the characteristics of their households are critical to understanding future levels of educational benefit usage.
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Notes
- 1.
As of November 2015, the federal district court decision was on appeal. The court decision found that the fixed-point residency requirement was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause because the policy was not “rationally related to any legitimate state interest.”
- 2.
There were 147 exemptions in 2012, 225 exemptions in 2013, and 245 exemptions in 2014 that were not classified by type.
- 3.
For additional discussion on this issue see Legislative Budget Board. 2014. Report on Hazlewood Exemption . Austin, Texas.
- 4.
Under these projections , 34 % of eligible veteran children age 18 to 25 will use the Legacy Exemption (up from 13 % in 2014).
- 5.
We used the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series – Current Population Survey to analyze veteran time since discharge and age of children in households.
- 6.
For information on federal education benefits see U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs , Veterans Benefits Administration (2012). Summary of VA Education Benefits. http://benefits.va.gov/BENEFITS/benefits-summary/SummaryofVAEducationBenefits.pdf.
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Cline, M.E., Murdock, S.H., Zey, M. (2017). Demographic Analyses for Public Policy: Projecting the Use of Veteran Educational Benefits in Texas. In: Swanson, D. (eds) The Frontiers of Applied Demography. Applied Demography Series, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43329-5_3
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