As printed in the Q4 2023 ACCS Alabama Minute Newsletter.
Roughly 200,000 service members leave the military each year, and reports indicate about half of recently separated veterans face difficulty connecting with available resources and benefits for several years.
Alabama veterans and military families are overcoming these barriers by connecting with their local community colleges.
Lori Hauptman, an Army veteran, is one example. “I thought that I had forgotten how to be a civilian and how to be a student,” she said.
Hauptman had university credits but no degree, so she got a job working at a physical therapy clinic out-of-state. As she got comfortable working with patients, she wanted to learn more about the trade.
An Army captain working as a physical therapist inspired Hauptman to pursue her next mission. He noticed her passion for patient care and knew of the best school to help her achieve her dreams: Southern Union State Community College.
There, Hauptman is majoring in physical therapy assistance.
A 2017 study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry found that most student service members and veterans enroll in 2-year institutions, and are overall more likely to major in engineering, applied sciences, and social sciences.
Hauptman is determined to commute one hour from Georgia to Alabama each week because “here at Southern Union everyone is welcoming and made it very easy to fall back into the rhythm of being a civilian,” she said.
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