GI Bill Information: Ask the Expert BlogExpert Answers to Your GI Bill Benefits Questions
Author: Jeffery Anderson
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Jim, First let me say that what you’ve done is pretty admirable; as another veteran who served in the Marines and is in his mid 50s, I couldn’t imagine going through the physical rigors of enlisting at 57 years of age.
It sounds to me like your 450 days of active duty service while in the Army Reserves should qualify you for some Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. If you served more than 12 months but less than 18 months on active duty, then you should be eligible for 60 percent of the full Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. If it turns out that you were on active duty for more than 18 months but less tan 24 months, you are going to be eligible for 70 percent of the benefits.
Unfortunately you are not going to be able to transfer your benefits to your son. The benefits of the Post 9/11 GI Bill can only be transferred while you are on active duty and you would have to commit to serving 4 years of active duty time after the transfer was approved. Also, any children who receive their parents’ Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits must use them before they turn 26 so even if you were eligible to transfer your benefits, your son would not be eligible to receive them.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Hassan, The University of Minnesota is approved for the Post 9/11 GI Bill or at least some of their campuses are on the list. I would think that if some campuses are approved, then all of them would be approved, but what you should do is contact the VA Certifying Official at the campus of the University of Minnesota you would like to attend and verify that the program you hope to pursue is approved.
I also checked to see if the University of Minnesota is a Yellow Ribbon Program and it appears they are, but only for graduate programs. That is something else you might want to verify with the VA Certifying Official though, as if they offer the Yellow Ribbon Program to undergraduate students, it could help a lot with any tuition costs that aren’t covered by the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
The GI Bill can’t help you get into the college. You are going to have to look at the admissions requirements on their website or contact their admissions office and apply for school just as any other student would. The fact that you’re a veteran may help you with getting accepted to the school and you may be able to get some credits for your military training and schools attended. but you will still have to go through the admissions process to be accepted into the university.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Mike, before I answer your question I’ll ask you a question, “why would you want to do this at this point in time?” If you have already decided where you plan to go to school and what you are going to be majoring in, then I can understand it a little bit. But if you are just doing it because you are going to be getting out of the military in February and you want to tie up loose ends, then I think you are making a big mistake.
If you don’t switch to the Post 9/11 GI Bill now, you will be getting out of the military armed with two different GI Bills that can assist you with just about any type of education program you decide to pursue. If you switch now, it will be almost impossible to switch back to the Montgomery GI Bill if you discover that it would have been a better benefits program for the education program you have chosen. I get questions all the time from veterans wondering why the Post 9/11 GI Bill won’t pay for their school or program.
In some cases the Post 9/11 GI Bill can be the best GI Bill for attending school and in other cases the Montgomery GI Bill provides more benefits. I suggest you wait until you know what you plan to do and then do a GI Bill comparison before deciding which one to use. One nice thing about the Montgomery GI Bill is that if you are eligible for both GI Bills, you can use your MGIB benefits first and then apply for 12 months of Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits so you end up with a total of 48 months of benefits. If you switch now, you are only going to receive 36 months of benefits.
When the time comes, if you decide the Post 9/11 GI Bill is the best route for you to take, all you have to do is go to the VONAPP website and apply for the Post 9/11 GI Bill online. The VA will automatically switch you from the MGIB to the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Karen, this is a complicated question with a lot of variables that only you and your family are going to be able to answer. The reason it’s complicated is that there is no set amount your children are going to get with the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
If your husband divided his benefits in half, each of your children is going to get 18 months of benefits which equates to two years of school with each school year being nine months.
The amount the Post 9/11 GI Bill pays per credit hour varies by state. Lets use New York as an example as I was just using it in another question. If your children go to school in New York, they can receive up to $1,010 per credit hour for the 18 months they have benefits. The VA considers 12 credit hours per semester to be a full course load for an undergraduate degree program, but my daughter is in college right now and carrying 15 per semester so let’s use 15 credit hours per semester. That means each of your children could receive up to $15,150 per semester if they were carrying 15 credit hours per semester at a college in New York.
In addition they could also qualify for the Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance and up to $1000 per year for a book allowance. And lastly, if they attend a Yellow Ribbon Program school and there is some tuition that isn’t covered by the Post 9/11 GI Bill while they are using it, the school and the VA may cover part or all of it.
This example is all based on New York, if your children go to school in any other state the maximum the GI Bill pays per credit hour is going to be totally different and so will the amount they can get for their housing allowance.
The other variable of course is the school itself and what the tuition is going to be. With some schools the Post 9/11 GI Bill is more than enough for tuition and with other schools the Post 9/11 GI Bill contribution is just a drop in the bucket.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Chris, As long as you meet the requirements for transferring your Post 9/11 GI Bill, the actual transfer procedure is easy. You have to be on active duty and you have to be eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill to transfer your benefits. You also have to have been in the military for at least 6 years to be eligible to transfer your benefits. Your children will have to be registered in DEERS to receive your benefits.
If you meet those requirements, then you go to this Department of Defense website and fill out the online transfer of education benefits request. Your children should be listed on the form already if they are registered in DEERS. You can transfer all of your benefits or just a portion of them and you can divide them up however you desire. In order for the request to be approved you are going to have to agree to remain on active duty for 4 years after the transfer takes place.
Your children will not be able to use the benefits until you have been in the military for 10 years and they have until they turn 26 years old to use the benefits. Receiving your Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits also makes them eligible for the Yellow Ribbon Program. When they are ready to attend school they just need to go to the VONAPP website and apply for their GI Bill benefits.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Keven, You don’t have to be a full time student, but you do have to be more than a half time student to qualify for the Post 9/11 GI Bill housing stipend. The VA considers 12 credit hours per semester to be an average course load for an undergraduate degree program. In order to qualify for the housing allowance a student would have to carry more than 6 credit hours per semester so if you were carrying 7-9 per semester, you should be in good shape.
There is also another requirement that all of the courses being carried can’t be online classes. At least some of the courses you are taking must be taught in a classroom.
Graduate programs work a little differently under the Post 9/11 GI Bill. The VA recognizes that graduate programs can differ greatly from major to major and from school to school. Because of this the VA allows the individual school determine what it feels an average course load should be for a graduate degree program in a particular major. You are going to have to contact the VA Certifying Official at the school you are planning to attend to find out what the average course load per semester is for whatever graduate degree program you are considering. Whatever it happens to be, as long as you are carrying more than half the credit hours for an average course load you should be in good shape for the Post 9/11 GI Bill housing stipend.
Also, remember that you can’t qualify for the housing allowance if you are still on active duty or using transferred Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits from a spouse who is still on active duty.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Scott, the Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance is paid in arrears so it will always be a month behind. I can’t say for sure, but it sounds like that is what went into your account on September 1st, and with you starting classes on August 16th a half month payment would be about right.
Future payments should be about the same time each month, but I wouldn’t always count on them being there right on the first of the month. It should be pretty close to it though as they process them all at about the same time each month.
Don’t forget that you have to maintain more than 6 credit hours per semester if you are in an undergraduate degree program to keep your Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance coming every month. Sometimes students drop a problem class and forget until it’s too late that it drops them below the level where they qualify for the housing allowance.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Noelle, there isn’t a maximum number of credit hours per year you can take as far as the VA is concerned, but there should be a maximum with the school you attend. You will be enrolled in a degree program, in this case a Physicians Assistant program, and the school along with the State Approving Agency and the VA Certifying Officials at the school determine how many credit hours per semester each degree program should average.
The State Approving Agency is a state agency that works with the VA in each state and approves and monitors the approved programs for the GI Bills. Each student using the Post 9/11 GI Bill should sit down with a VA Certifying Official at the school and work out a plan for earning a degree and the Official should offer recommendations for course loads per semester. The school and the Official should not allow the student to take more credit hours per semester than they can successfully handle.
If the degree program you are looking at consists of three semesters per year and an average course load of 20 credit hours per semester and it has been approved by the VA, then your Post 9/11 GI Bill should pay up to $1,010 per credit hour while you are pursuing a degree in that program at a school in New York and have GI Bill benefits.
If the school is a Yellow Ribbon Program school, they are probably going to monitor your class load even closer to ensure you don’t overload yourself with credit hours per semester.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Lonnie, The only GI Bill that has a transfer of benefits provision is the Post 9/11 GI Bill and your father would have had to have been on active duty on or after 1 August 2009 to be eligible to transfer you his benefits under that GI Bill.
The transfer of benefits provision was added at that time and veterans who had already retired were not eligible for it. Part of the reason for that is service members who want to take advantage of the ability to transfer their Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to a spouse or dependent child must agree to remain on active duty for a period of time after the transfer is approved.
You might want to check with your state’s Department of Veterans Affairs office as some states have education benefits for the children of military veterans. Another place you should look is the Army Emergency Relief; they often have scholarships and grants available for the children of Army veterans.
by Jeffery Anderson
Hi Lawrence, I’m not sure which GI Bill you’re planning on using, but I would think you are in good shape with either one. The Post 9/11 GI Bill can be used at approved institutions of higher learning to earn a degree. Every Bible College that I am aware of has the ability to award several types of degrees, so they should qualify. The best way to find out for sure is to go to this VA website and click on the state your school is in to see if your school is on the approved list of schools in that state.
If for some reason the school you are considering is not on the list, I would look for other Bible Colleges that are on there. I think there would almost have to be some that are approved for the Post 9/11 GI Bill and you may even be able to find some that are Yellow Ribbon Program schools. A Yellow Ribbon Program school could be a big help if you are considering attending college out of your resident state. If you are accepted into the school’s Yellow Ribbon Program, they will cover a portion of your tuition that exceeds what the Post 9/11 GI Bill pays and the VA will match their contribution.
If you are planning on using Montgomery GI Bill benefits to attend the school, I would think that as long as it is an approved program you should be able to use your benefits for the school.
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- Served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps
- His father, grandfather, and two uncles served in the U.S. Army, and his son served in the U.S. Navy
- Graduate of Virginia Military Institute
