Can I Use the New GI Bill to Earn a Doctorate?

Hi Dennis, From what you have written, it sounds like you qualify for the New GI Bill.  If you have never used any Mongomery GI Bill or New GI Bill benefits, then you should still have your full 36 months of educational benefits remaining.  If you are planning on pursuing your Doctorate while on active duty, you have 2 options.  You can use Tuition Assistance to pay for part of the tuition, and use your New GI Bill benefits to pay the difference as a Top Up program, or if you wanted to, you could use the New GI Bill to pay your full tuition.  The New GI Bill pays full tuition at any school for active duty service members.  I would recommend using Tuition Assistance, and saving as much of your New GI Bill as possible.

If you are planning on pursuing your Doctorate after leaving the military, then the New GI Bill will only pay up to the highest undergraduate tuition rate at a public school in the state where your home of record is.  For example, let’s say you live in Virginia, and are planning on pursuing a Doctorate at Virginia Tech.  If college B is a state supported school, and it’s undergraduate tuition is the highest for a state supported school in Virginia, the New GI Bill will contribute that much to your Doctorate program at Virginia Tech.

There is another program called the Yellow Ribbon Program.  Schools that participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program will fund part of the difference in what the New GI Bill will pay for, up to 50 percent, and Veterans Affairs will match the contribution.  Using the same example, if your tuition at Virginia Tech was $8000 a semester, and the New GI Bill only covered $4000, you could be faced with paying $4000 from another source.  If Virginia Tech was a Yellow Ribbon school that agreed to pay up to $2000 of the difference in a veterans’s tuition, the Veterans Affairs Office would match that $2000, and your entire tuition would be covered.