Jay Blake (left), who served in the Marines, rides the elevator with his fellow students at Sierra Community College in Rocklin, Calif.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jake Chavez, who served with the Marines in Iraq, mans the help desk at the Veterans Resource Center in Sierra College's library.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The resource program at Sierra provides help not only in how to navigate college classes on campus but how to apply for VA benefits and get the proper support from the GI Bill, as well.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Catherine Morris, who runs the program, talks with one of her veteran students. Morris, who served as a Marine, created the program after seeing little support for vets on Sierra's campus.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Blake (right) recites the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of a meeting of the Marine Corps Veterans Association in Sacramento, Calif. Blake joined the group to keep in touch with both old and young Marine veterans in the area who support one another.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Michelle Johnson, an English professor at Sierra College, has been an avid supporter of the campus veterans programs. She started a "Boot to Books" class to give former members of the military the extra push they need as they transition to civilian life.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Blake (center) and Morris (right) talk with members of the Marine Corps Veterans Association in Sacramento.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Morris walks across the Sierra College campus on her way to a meeting.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Crystal Turner, a Marine veteran now attending classes at Sierra College, helps her 1 1/2-year-old daughter, Marley Rose, out of a car. Turner is balancing classes and working at the vets center on campus with being a full-time mother.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Marley Rose looks up at her mother while playing in the kitchen of their family home near Sacramento. Crystal Turner is mostly raising her two children on her own because her husband, who is also a Marine, lives two hours away near his base.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Turner holds Marley Rose while she comforts her 3-year-old son, Michael.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Marley Rose looks outside to the backyard for her mother.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jay Blake (left), who served multiple tours in Iraq as a Marine, rides the elevator with his fellow students in the library at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif. Blake, who has struggled since returning home, says he finally settled into his studies with the help of Catherine Morris, an academic adviser who works with the vets on campus.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Eric Theeler goes over some of his class assignments with veterans and student-athletes, who share a workspace in Sierra College's library.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Marine veteran Crystal Turner, a student at Sierra College, holds her daughter, Marley Rose, while she tries to coax her son, Michael, into finishing a walk in the park near their home in Sacramento.
Most American troops have left Iraq, and many have left Afghanistan. Now more than half a million of them have left the service — and they're going to college. Some vets say the transition is like landing on another planet, but they aren't the only ones struggling: The college staffs are, too.
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana's colleges are bracing for the newest rounds of budget cuts, with higher education hit with a $25 million cut in the final month of this fiscal year and another $66 million in slashing for the upcoming budget year.
The reductions are lower than lawmakers considered before they wrapped up their work. But they fall on top of years of reductions that campus leaders say are chasing away administration leaders, faculty and students.
The University of New Orleans has been awarded grants totaling $5 million over a five-year period by the Upward Bound program through the U. S. Department of Education.
The grants will fund three projects: UNO's Project Pass, UNO's Jefferson Upward Bound and UNO's Classic Upward Bound.
Dennis Lauscha, a graduate of Loyola University and the newly promoted president of the New Orleans Saints, will return to his alma mater to teach a course on the business of professional football at the university's inaugural Alumni College.
BATON ROUGE, La. — The Senate's budget-writing committee refused to agree to deep cuts pushed by House Republicans for next year's $25 million state operating budget.
Senators on the Finance Committee restored an estimated $350 million to next year's 2012-13 spending plans. They added back the one-time money removed by a bloc of conservative House Republicans, and they also tapped into available health care financing and plugged in further piecemeal dollars.
