Yes Ritchie, it is true. The VA will only pay your school for the class you need to complete your degree plan. From the education standpoint, the VA has three purposes:

• Manage the money wisely they are given from Congress
• Help you manage your GI Bill eligibility benefit
• See you use your benefit to train for a career

So if you only need one 3-credit class, why would the VA pay for additional classes just to get you to the minimum credit level to get the Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance? Not only would it be a waste of funds for the VA (to pay for classes you don’t need and housing allowance you shouldn’t have), but also a waste of your eligibility. You would be using up your GI Bill eligibility for two classes you don’t need to graduate.

And believe it or not, many students need help managing their benefits. If left to their own accord, they would expend all their eligibility taking classes willy-nilly and not end up with anything they could use for a career. That is the primary reason why in most cases the VA will not pay for a private pilot’s license, because that is seen as an avocation and not as a vocation – something you could do for a career.

I’m sure you are only seeing it from your viewpoint, but there a bigger picture as to why they do what they do and the way they do it.

All great question Crystal! I’ll do my best to answer them.

It sounds like you know the maximum Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance you can get as a full-time online-only student is $673.50. As far as tuition, most online schools do not differentiate between resident and non-resident students for their online programs as they have a set online tuition rate.

However, if your school does have different rates, then the VA will pay the tuition amount that a resident student would pay. You would be responsible for the difference between the resident and non-resident amount. In addition to your housing allowance, you would also get the book stipend once each semester.

As far as the number of credits you take having an effect on how long you benefits last, it won’t and here is why. If you are at least a full-time student, Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility use is determined by the number of days you are in school per month. So in your case, you use up 30 days of eligibility for each 30 days you are in school. Whatever you have left you can use toward getting your master’s degree.

Generally not David unless you can prove you were:

• detained by a foreign power.
• recalled to active duty.
• unable to attend classes due to health, family, or job issues.

The last one is very hard to support and very few cases are approved.

However, there is a new program starting that you may qualify for. It is the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act of 2011. You must meet the first requirement by being between the ages of 35 and 60 and not have any active GI Bill benefits left. The other requirements are:

- having an honorable discharge from your last tour of duty in the Armed Forces.
- having been unemployed for a specified period of time yet to be determined by the Secretary of Labor, but first consideration will go to veterans who have been unemployed for at least 26 weeks or more.
- Not eligible for other types of veterans’ educational assistance, including:

o Montgomery GI Bill (Chapter 33)
o Vocational Rehabilitation Program (Chapter 31)
o Post 9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33)
o Survivor and Dependents Education Assistance Program (Chapter 35)
o Certifying your enrollment in the program monthly.
o Applying prior to October 1, 2013 (but we do not know what the application procedures are at this time. Once known, we will post them on this blog.)

Only 55,000 veterans will be able to participate in the retraining program between October 1, 2012 and March 31, 2014, so if you qualify, it will be imperative to apply early.

Your retraining must occur at a community college or vocational-technical school and must lead to an associate’s degree, certificate, license or other type of program completion documentation and be in an occupation designated as in high demand by the Secretary of Labor.

Keep watching this blog for more information on how to apply becomes available.

Yes, Binal, if you are still serving and meet the transfer qualifications, you can transfer as much as you want up to the limit of your unused Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. To review the qualification, you have to had served for at least six years and agree to serve an additional four years, unless you are within four years of being retirement eligible. In that case, the additional time required is prorated down to a lesser amount.

As far as his school not being listed on Weam’s, yes his school can request to become a VA-approved school. They have to address these questions in their approval request letter to the VA.

Keep in mind it does quite awhile for a school to get approved and approval doesn’t mean the school will accept all GI Bills or that all of their programs will be covered. The school decides what parameters they want in the approval request letter. My point being that even if his school gets approved, his coursework program might not be included.

If he has contacts at the school, he may want to help them draft their letter so he is sure his course gets included and for the correct GI Bill – the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

That sucks doesn’t it Billy. Thousands of veterans were caught in this quagmire and nobody on Capital Hill seems to be in any hurry to fix this last remaining Post 9/11 GI Bill wrong against veterans. Over the past couple of years, two different pieces of legislation have been drafted that would have allowed qualified veterans a one-time opportunity to make a transfer request. However not only did neither piece of legislation pass, they never even made it to a vote.

In the drafted legislation, they were going to push the transfer of benefits eligibility back to 10 December 2001 and it would run up to 31 July 2009. They could not go any further back because it takes a minimum of 90 days of service to become eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill; the 10 December date is 90 days from the original GI Bill eligibility date of 10 September 2001. The only bright light in the sky is a new petition that was started to fix the very thing you are talking about.

I don’t envision anything else on the horizon that would change on this issue unless someone lights a fire under their Legislator’s butt and it gets hot enough to spur some legislation. The only way that could happen would be for the veterans to unite under a common cause and sign/support the petition. I’ve been doing this for some time now and I have not seen that solidarity yet. Hopefully this can be the vehicle to make that happen. With enough support, maybe we can make this happen together.

As far as what qualifies you for the additional year of benefits David, is the fact that you served on a Title 10 order for at least 90-days after September 10, 2001 and this is your second GI Bill. If the Post 9/11 GI Bill would have been your only GI Bill, then you would have only received the 36 months. Under the Rule of 48, if you qualify for two or more GI Bills, the maximum combined total months cannot exceed 48.

The answer to your second question as far as switching back to the MGIB, the answer is no. Switching from one GI Bill to the Post 9/1 GI Bill is a one-way street. Once you switch and use any of those benefits, you can’t go back. And the other thing you have to know is you have to fully exhaust your MGIB benefits before you switch. If you switch too soon, all you will get is what you have left under your MGIB.

The Yellow Ribbon Program has nothing to do with the additional year of benefits. Many schools have an agreement with the VA and in that agreement it states how many students they will take in the program, how much they will pay and what programs are covered. As you noted UOP offers $2,500.

Under the Yellow Ribbon rules, schools can offer up to 50% of the difference between what they charge and what the Post 9/11 GI Bill pays and the VA will pay an additional amount. So while your school only pays $2,500 per year, that is only half of the total as the VA pays an additional $2,500.  You still have to have unused Post 9/11 Benefits left to use the Yellow Ribbon Program as it can’t be used by itself.

I decided to start a petition on behalf of all eligible veterans who retired after December 10, 2001 but before August 1, 2009. Because these vets retired before the “magic” date of August 1, 2009, they never had the opportunity to make a transfer request.

Now is your opportunity. If you want to try and get this wrong righted, sign the petition.

You can read the preamble of the petition which gives the background information and defines the veterans in each affected group, if you are not already aware of the situation. The petition part reads:

“We, the undersigned, call on the President of the United States to initiate a Post 9/11 GI Bill Transfer-of-Benefits equality and fairness initiative to 20+ year retired military veterans, in both groups as defined in the Preamble, retiring between and including December 10, 2001 to July 31, 2009, by allowing them a one-time opportunity to transfer unused Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to dependent family members.”

You do not have to be in one of the affected veteran groups to support this petition. I can’t guarantee it will be successful, but it is obvious this thing isn’t going to resolve itself, so let’s take it to the Commander-in-Chief and see what happens.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions in this post are solely those of the blogger, not necessarily those of www.gibill.com and/or its owner, QuinStreet Inc. ]]> http://www.gibill.com/blog/post-911-gi-bill-transfer-of-benefits-initiative-for-retired-veterans.html/feed 0 http://www.gibill.com/blog/could-i-live-in-ga-attend-school-in-fl-and-still-get-my-post-911-gi-bill-housing-allowance.html http://www.gibill.com/blog/could-i-live-in-ga-attend-school-in-fl-and-still-get-my-post-911-gi-bill-housing-allowance.html#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:00:42 +0000 Ron Kness http://www.gibill.com/blog/?p=18033 Could I live in GA, attend a School in FL and still get my housing allowance from my GI Bill? – Ariel

Yes you can Ariel, but I want to make you aware of a couple of things first. One, your Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance is determined by the zip code of your school and the number of credits you are taking each semester. For example the housing allowance amount for a full-time student going to school in Atlanta would be $1,149. The same student going to school in Miami is $1,863 per month. So from the housing allowance standpoint, you would earn about $700 per month more by going to school in Miami verses Atlanta.

However, the housing allowance is only half the equation. You also have to look at tuition as you will most likely not have residency in Florida. Now that is not an issue if GA and FL have a reciprocity agreement with each other where students can cross state lines and not pay out-state tuition.  If they don’t have reciprocity, then expect to pay the non-resident tuition amount which in some cases can be double the resident rate.

If that ends up being the case, then ask if your FL school is a Yellow Ribbon school. If so, that program could possibly help pay for the tuition difference between what the Post 9/11 GI Bill pays and what your FL school charges you.  This is doable, but act smart and ask lots of questions before committing. ]]> http://www.gibill.com/blog/could-i-live-in-ga-attend-school-in-fl-and-still-get-my-post-911-gi-bill-housing-allowance.html/feed 0 http://www.gibill.com/blog/when-i-retire-from-the-national-guard-what-additional-va-education-benefits-will-i-have.html http://www.gibill.com/blog/when-i-retire-from-the-national-guard-what-additional-va-education-benefits-will-i-have.html#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:47 +0000 Ron Kness http://www.gibill.com/blog/?p=18025 I received an ROTC scholarship and served my initial 4 year active duty service obligation, plus an additional 10 months due to a deployment. Am I correct to assume that I am eligible for 50% of Post 9/11 benefits? Also, I am currently serving in the National Guard. When I retire from the Guard, will I be eligible for additional VA education benefits according to current policies? – Justin

Yes, Justin, with 10 months of service after your 4-year ROTC obligation was satisfied, would put you at the 50% tier for the Post 9/11 GI Bill. The one thing that could bump your percentage up more is if you would do another one or two 1-year deployments. Twelve additional months would put you at 70%; twenty-four months at 90%.

As far as any federal education benefits from the National Guard, there won’t be any. The way the Montgomery GI Bill – Selected Reserve is structured, its benefits expire either 10 years from your Notice of Benefits Eligibility (NOBE) date or upon discharge, whichever is first. Plus, none of the MGIB-SR benefits are transferable as they are with the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

Now as far as State benefits, depending on which state you are in, there could be some residual benefits after you retire. Some states waive tuition or reduce it. Some will give you a voucher for books. The benefits they offer are wide and varied. This website VA’s Benefits by State website will show you what each state offers. ]]> http://www.gibill.com/blog/when-i-retire-from-the-national-guard-what-additional-va-education-benefits-will-i-have.html/feed 0 http://www.gibill.com/blog/is-my-son-eligible-for-any-gi-bill-benefits-with-an-other-than-honorable-discharge.html http://www.gibill.com/blog/is-my-son-eligible-for-any-gi-bill-benefits-with-an-other-than-honorable-discharge.html#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:52 +0000 Ron Kness http://www.gibill.com/blog/17981.html My son was discharged from the Navy after 3 years and 8 months of service (2007 – 2011). His discharge was classified as “other.” Is he eligible for any benefits of the GI Bill? Thank you for taking our question. – Sara

I can’t speak for all of the GI Bill benefits, because they are not my specialty, but as far education, he will not be able to use his 36 months of entitlement. But, the good news (if there is any) is he did not lose his benefits – he still has them, but can’t use them.

So, the next step he should consider is does he have enough justification to support a discharge upgrade request. The Board will automatically consider his discharge correct, so his job is to convince the Board it is not correct and provide evidence to support his upgrade request.

That is usually best left to a lawyer experienced in military discharge upgrade proceedings. If he wants to pursue an upgrade request, he has to start by submitting DD Form 293 to the Navy Discharge Review Board.

Just as a warning, it can take up to a year to hear back and there isn’t a guarantee that it will be upgraded, but it is the only avenue of appeal he has. Plus if he hires a lawyer to represent him, he will have to pay for that expense also, whether his upgrade is approved of not. I don’t want to discourage him, but for Army soldiers, only 41% of the requests are approved. I don’t have statistics for Navy personnel, but I don’t imagine they are much different.