Navigate the new GI Bill p1 - GI Bill Benefits - Tuition Assistance for the Military - Military Times EDGE

The Post-9/11 GI Bill was written for Lance Zaal.

He was a senior in high school on Sept. 11, 2001, and he visited a Marine Corps recruiter that very day.

“I didn’t do it for college,” Zaal said of his decision to join the Corps. “I didn’t really even think about that at the time.”

As an infantry squad leader, Zaal deployed twice to Iraq, once to Cuba and once briefly to South America, before leaving active duty in spring 2006 for life as a college student. Now he’s a senior majoring in economics and international relations at College of William & Mary in WAnd because of one smart decision, he’ll be entitled to 18 months of education benefits under the new Post-9/11 GI Bill. He plans to use that money to help pay for law school down the road.

Zaal was confident that the new GI Bill would pass even as it was still being debated in Congress, so he stopped his Montgomery GI Bill payments to preserve eligibility under the new, more valuable benefit.

He’ll qualify for 100 percent of the new program’s maximum benefit. That means he’ll receive the maximum amount for tuition, plus a housing allowance that’s worth $1,370 a month in Williamsburg. Zaal estimates that in his case, the Post-9/11 GI Bill will be worth twice what he was collecting under the Montgomery GI Bill.

Because Zaal followed the new GI Bill closely during the legislative process, he was able to figure out what made the most financial sense for him.

Crunching such numbers is what every service member or veteran who may qualify for the Post-9/11 GI Bill needs to do starting now.

What’s changing

Post-9/11 GI Bill recipients will need to factor in a number of variables that weren’t part of the equation before, said Keith Wilson, director over the Veterans Affairs Department’s education benefits.

Those who qualify for the new GI Bill, including Guard and reserve members with equal full-time service, will have longer to use the Post-9/11 GI Bill than the Montgomery GI Bill — 15 years vs. 10 years — and some may have the option of transferring eligibility to a spouse or child.

The new GI Bill is a second chance for service members who didn’t pay the $1,200 to be eligible for the Montgomery GI Bill. The new plan doesn’t require a contribution.

A whopping new housing allowance — equal to the military’s Basic Allowance for Housing for an E-5 with dependents in your school’s ZIP code — could be a major consideration in more than one choice you’ll have to make.

First, the 2009 rates vary widely — from $739 a month in Paducah, Ky., to $2,763 a month in San Francisco.

“It’s enough of a difference that potentially we could see folks making their decision geographically on where they want to go to school,” Wilson said.

Second, the housing allowance could influence a student’s chosen mode of learning.

“One of the primary drivers of where vets go to school is convenience,” Wilson said. But the housing allowance won’t be available to GI Bill students who study online.

How it works

The Army Reserve didn’t pay enough to cover DeShawn Bowser’s total college costs, so he went active duty, serving three years as an Army patient administration specialist, including a tour in Iraq.

He’s using the Montgomery GI Bill — currently worth $1,321 a month for full-time students — to pay for his mass communications degree from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Va.

Come fall, Bowser will have to choose whether to continue studying under the Montgomery GI Bill or to re-enroll under the new program.

Here’s what the new GI Bill could mean to a student such as Bowser:

Norfolk State students who qualify for 100 percent of the new GI Bill will have all of their tuition and fees paid — about $2,800 for a 15-credit-hour semester — and they’ll receive a housing allowance worth about $1,410 a month while they’re taking classes. They’ll also receive $1,000 a year for books and supplies.

Say a Norfolk State student earns a degree over the course of eight regular college semesters. That means he attends classes nine months out of each year — two 4.5-month semesters over four years. Over the span of a bachelor’s degree, the Post-9/11 GI Bill is worth $28,360 more than the Montgomery GI Bill.

The online question

Gunnery Sgt. Al Vincent-Mitchell joined the Marine Corps in 1994 for a sense of direction — “intangible qualities I needed in my life,” said the expeditionary airfield technician and instructor at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.

When he graduates this summer, it’ll be the third online degree he’s earned using military education benefits. He has a bachelor’s in theology from Trinity College and Seminary and another in business from American InterContinental University. He’s about to complete Kaplan University’s online MBA program.

If you want to go to school online, you might follow Vincent-Mitchell’s example and complete as much of your degree as you can while still in uniform and already receiving a military housing allowance.

Students who participate in “distance education” won’t qualify for the Post-9/11 GI Bill’s housing allowance, even if they’re taking as many or more credit hours as students enrolled in “resident courses.”

The majority of Kaplan’s military students — veterans and active duty — do attend full time, said Brian Sayler, Kaplan’s military initiatives marketing director.

Students pursuing distance education, defined as coursework “offered in whole or in part through telecommunications,” won’t receive the housing allowance because of a potential for abuse that the VA identified in the officinal draft of the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Wilson said that because an individual’s housing allowance is determined using his or her school’s ZIP code, the original bill opened the door for online schools to move their headquarters to cities with the highest BAH rates in order to attract distance-learning students who live in less costly areas.

Online schools would like to see the law amended to give their students the housing allowance based on the student’s address — not the schools.

What’s staying the same

VA is still working out how to implement the new GI Bill, but Wilson said he expects students to continue enrolling through the existing system. The goal is to maintain the 19-day turnaround time from the day a student applies for benefits to the day he is “authorized.”

Wilson reminds students that they’ll still have to be accepted to the college of their choice. “The VA has no role in that.”

And you’ll still have to wait until the end of a given month for payments — now for the housing allowance because tuition will be paid to your school, Wilson said.

What to look for

It could take longer for Post-9/11 GI Bill students to receive their first housing allowances than subsequent ones, Wilson said, because it’ll be up to schools to verify students’ data at the beginning of each college term, and this fall is the first time college officials will do so under the new system.

There may be some relief, Wilson said, for students who choose higher-priced programs thanks to the new law’s Yellow Ribbon Program. Yellow Ribbon schools will agree to discount tuition for Post-9/11 GI Bill students, and VA will match that amount up to the student’s total cost of tuition and fees. Whether students will be able to pay for all of a private education under the program will depend on how much tuition relief they receive from their schools.

Schools must elect to participate, and they won’t be expected to commit until spring. Wilson said his office expects to publish a list of Yellow Ribbon schools at that time.

In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for any mail from VA, Wilson said. The department already sends out letters four times during a service member’s career: at 12 months, 24 months, six months before separation and at separation. Those mailings now contain a brochure on the new program.

More direct mailings — to all active-duty service members and anybody with qualifying service after Sept. 10, 2001 — are planned for the late winter or early spring. You can sign up for e-mail alerts at the GI Bill Web site, www.gibill.va.gov.

“This is a very confusing situation for everybody right now,” Wilson said. “You’ve got to be ahead of the game.”