Yes, god forbid we encourage mixing of world views because it might challenge both side's opinions of the other and gasp might even lead to some improvements. Lets continue to segregate as much as possible.

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.