Have a College Age Military Kid?
Angie Drake
Chief Storyteller | Strategic Thinker | Intercultural Communication | Creative Solutions
Have a college age military kid heading to school this year?
Are they using the GI Bill?
Are you active duty?
You may be in for a huge surprise - a bill for out-of-state tuition.
Active duty military kids are not afforded the same benefit to in-state tuition as the majority of beneficiaries of the Post 9/11 or Montgomery GI Bill. Bear with me as I explain the law as it exists and the problem that has been created by the VA's interpretation of the Veterans Choice Act of 2014.
Just this last January, most people who receive the GI Bill also receive in-state tuition. Congress wanted college education to be affordable for all recipients of the GI Bill and found that many veterans and their families were paying high out out-of-state tuition rates because of complicated residency requirements. Unfortunately, the law, specifically section 702, is written in such a way that the Veterans Administration interpreted it to mean that active-duty children could not use this particular benefit.
Perhaps it was merely a misunderstanding of congressional staff who assumed that active duty members could still be considered veterans. In the lose sense of the term, those who served during the most recent wars are sometimes referred to as Veterans of the Afghanistan War or Veteran of the Iraq War even while still serving on active duty.
No matter the reason for the poor wording of the law, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs believed that "it was never Congress' intent to exclude these dependents, as most are still connected to the servicemember and still subject to the transient nature of military service, often making it difficult to meet strict in-state tuition requirements in some states."
There is a fix in the works. HR 3016, which passed the House in February, includes this technical amendment:
Section 408 would address this problem by making a technical amendment to ensure eligible dependents of active duty servicemembers are included in the in-state tuition provision of the Choice Act. States and schools would have until July 1, 2016, to comply with this change.
Bad news. The bill is waiting in the Senate. And the bill also includes a poison pill: cuts to the BAH benefit for future active duty dependents receiving the GI Bill.
In the meantime, potentially hundreds of military kids are going to be charged fees that Congress never intended them to pay.
I am collecting stories about families in this situation. I am looking for both positive stories, where schools have said they will treat these kids like all other GI Bill recipients despite the VA's interpretation of the law, and negative ones. If you know of a real life story where a military kid will have to pay out of state fees and they are attending school on the GI Bill, I want to hear about it.
Please feel free to leave a comment on this article or contact me via [email protected].
If you are an editor interested in publishing this story, please let me know.
Military Family Employment Advocate and Researcher, Career Coach
8 年Great article. We checked with schools before my son applied. Most that we looked at offered in state tuition, but some limited the number they would do that for. We even had a couple private colleges that had programs that covered the cost difference between the GI Bill and their tuition.