At the University’s annual Veterans Day ceremony held on Nov. 11, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 introduced a new student veteran mentorship program and announced Brown’s commitment to provide an unlimited match for graduate program tuition and fees for student veterans through the Yellow Ribbon Program.
Mac Manning, program director of the Office of Military-Affiliated Students, told The Herald that the Yellow Ribbon Program is an extension of the Post-9/11 GI Bill passed in 2008.
The federally funded GI bill can cover up to the full price of public, in-state university tuition and fees, but there is a cap on how much can go toward private school costs. Private schools can close that gap in cost by participating in the Yellow Ribbon Program, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs matches every dollar a university spends to help cover tuition and fees for eligible student veterans.
Brown already utilizes the Yellow Ribbon Program to cover 100% of eligible undergraduate student veterans’ mandatory tuition and fees. In her address, Paxson said the University will now expand its participation in the program to provide a similar unlimited match for master’s and doctoral students enrolling for the 2026-27 academic year.
According to a University press release, expanding the program will ensure that financial barriers do not prevent veterans from pursuing graduate education at Brown.
This increased support comes amid a budget deficit and broader financial hardships on campus.
“Even and especially in times when we’re confronting larger financial challenges, it is essential to Brown’s mission that we’re able to persist in educating talented students from around the world and doing everything we can to eliminate financial barriers,” wrote University Spokesperson Brian Clark in an email to The Herald.
Paxson also announced that with a donation from the Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros Foundation, the OMAS’s peer-mentorship program for student veterans will become the new Cisneros Veterans Scholars Program. Gilbert Cisneros MA’15 is a U.S. Navy veteran who served as U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
In an email to The Herald, Kloey Albertson ’27, president of the Student Veterans Society, wrote that the new program “will provide student veterans with expanded one-on-one peer mentoring, along with more robust programming for community building and professional development.”
The average student veteran is 27-years-old, which sets them apart from typical undergraduates, Manning explained. The mentorship program aims to enhance the resources available to student veterans to ensure they can find a strong community and “have all the information they need to make well-informed decisions during the transition to Brown,” he added.
Albertson wrote that she is confident “this additional support will strengthen the overall veteran experience on campus.”
Jared Yee ’27 — vice president of the Student Veteran Society who was deployed in Eastern Europe in 2022 — credits “Brown with turning a traditionally difficult transition from service to the classroom into a seamless experience,” he wrote in an email to The Herald.
Yee believes the University’s new initiatives “will propel Brown to attract even more highly qualified veteran applicants,” he wrote.
The new initiatives come after the University’s 2019 goal to double its undergraduate veteran population by 2024. At the time, around 20 undergraduate veterans were enrolled at Brown. Now, that number has risen to 75, with 38 additional student veterans pursuing graduate degrees, according to the press release.
The University also offers a specific Veterans Application for undergraduates, which “was designed specifically for veteran applicants and incorporated feedback directly from veterans,” wrote Logan Powell, associate provost for enrollment and dean of undergraduate admission, in an email to The Herald.
Sydney Matthes, CEO of Service to School — an organization that helps active-duty service members and veterans navigate the higher education landscape — commended Brown on its work to support student-veterans.
She praised the University’s “willingness to invest in the student veteran community” throughout its partnership with Service to School’s VetLink Program, which provides free application mentoring and networking opportunities for veterans.
“As more veterans enroll on campus … the word is going to get out of how well Brown is supporting student veterans, both to and through their journey at Brown,” Matthes explained.
Matthes described Brown as a “hot destination for veterans.” Brown has been “advocating for change to better support the student population,” and that change is “having a direct impact on numbers of applicants,” she said.
