Willard Albert is generally considered to have been the first student to attend a university under the GI Bill (Public Law 346). Following high school, he attended the University of Miami on a football scholarship. He transferred to Allegheny College (Meadville, Pennsylvania) and earned the BA degree. He was awarded a scholarship to attend law school at Duke University. Following one year at Duke, he volunteered into the Army Air Corps, was discharged in May 1943, and went to work at Oak Ridge. He then entered the UT College of Law while the GI Bill was moving through the Congressional processes of enactment, and he filed a request to come under the bill’s provisions.
On August 24, 1945, he was among the first World War II veterans to graduate from UT. He and five other veterans (Mary Pless Kirby, Raymond Howard Brown, Charles Henry Richardson, John Buckner Sharp Jr. [MS degree], and Jason Olen Williams) received their degrees. Jason Williams attended under Public Law 16, which provided educational benefits to disabled veterans.
Following graduation, Albert practiced law in Knoxville for more than 60 years.