Veterans entering college often learn that institutions won’t accept much of their military training and experience for college credit, according to today’s Boston Globe.

Surveys by the American Council on Education have found that 14 percent of colleges don’t give credit for military service at all, and 30 percent award credit only for military course work, not occupational experience.

This contradicts what people have been told going into the military, the article says. As veterans return from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are required to take more courses than expected, “straining already thin GI Bill benefits,” even as more and more colleges pursue service members as students.

While the military does have a system to translate its courses and duties into college credit, colleges aren’t bound to honor the results. Veterans argue that military experience should be credited like internships. Many college officials don’t believe that much of military experience is transferable to an academic setting.

To circumvent the credit problem, many veterans attend one of the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, a consortium dedicated to helping service members earn college degrees. —Hurley Goodall