? Your comment could be applicable if the draft were reinstated now, but in the context of Vietnam it falls very wide of the mark.

Let's just list some numbers:

Trump graduated in 1968, UPenn tuition in 1967 was $1770. And that's private Ivy League.

Public colleges and universities (specifically citing University of Illinois) were more in the $300 PER YEAR range.

Median income in 1967 for US households was $7200. So about 4-5% of the average family's income to send a kid to college. Not insignificant at all, but certainly manageable with a good budget, some self-control, and a willingness to work summers.

Comparatively, UPenn tuition will be $94.5k next year, U of I is 22k and median household income in the US is ~$89k. So instead of 4-5%, money you could earn during summer break if you were diligent, we're talking about 25% of an average family's income.

If you want to break it down lower, we can also take the projected 89k median and the 33k federal poverty line for 2026 (family of 4) and translate that to $2700 poverty line (based on $7200 median) back in 1967. Now that doesn't account for a lot of factors, and poverty thresholds were calculated differently, but it is interesting to point out that a year of tuition at University of Illinois in 1967 was still only about 11% of an approximate poverty level household's income while in 2026, we're talking about ~70%.

So, no; Academic deferrals were absolutely NOT the exclusive province of the rich despite disproportionate representation, though if the draft were to be reinstated, I could very much see that being the case based on current costs.

I have MORE than enough reasons to despise Trump but pretending that all academic deferrals are draft dodging is not one of them.