Also according to wikipedia there has been a form of the GI bill running basically continuously since WWII, so this isn't a new change.
What I think is hard about college for a lot of people is that much of the learning, even more than highschool, has no immediate relevance. Heck I remember hating a lot of intro CS classes because I was solving problems I didn't care about. Or think about asking a kid what they'd want to program a computer for. For most it's such an abstract problem to problems they haven't even encountered yet that they can't even think of anything. Same goes for a lot of people which can be a bug turn off for a more traditional college education. That said I still think you need a foundation in the theoretical as well as the practical.
Would you be able to point out more precisely what you were referring to? I did not find such an assertion anywhere on the Wiki page[1].
Very shitty situation. The reason post WWII GI bill worked that well was that there were veterans everywhere from WWI and the draft that they could relate to and get help.