Salem State University is providing additional support for student veterans and active duty military personnel under a two-year federal grant that is aimed at improving graduation rates and aiding transition from military to student life.

Sam Ohannesian, the veterans services officer at the university, said there are about 220 veterans, active duty, National Guard, and dependent survivors attending the school at the graduate or undergraduate level.

Paul Brown was hired by the university this year under the grant, known as the Veterans and Family Program, to provide additional outreach and assistance to those students.

Only about 3 percent of veterans nation-wide graduate from college within five years, Brown said.

"We're going to do things hopefully to increase graduation rates for veterans," Brown said. 

The university is also looking to provide job training and placement for veterans upon graduation. It will host a job fair for veterans at the university's south campus gym on Tuesday, Nov. 16, in cooperation with North Shore Community College and the North Shore Workforce Investment Board.

In addition to guiding student veterans through admissions and applications for military benefits, Ohannesian said the veterans services program helps students with "readjustment issues."

"They are maybe not as comfortable in the classroom as they'd like," Ohanessian said. "They could have PTSD. Each veteran comes with their own unique set of circumstances and we provide unique assistance for each of them."

The job fair next week is available to all veterans and family members, but with particular emphasis on veterans of the country's two ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Universities including Salem State are "beefing up veterans services," Ohannesian said. "It's becoming more of a requirement."

Ohannesian said there will be more than 45 agencies and companies present at the job fair, which runs from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday in the Harrison Road gym.