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.

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/is-this-correct-that-i-will-not-get-the-full-housing-allowance-for-all-of-the-semester.html http://www.gibill.com/blog/is-this-correct-that-i-will-not-get-the-full-housing-allowance-for-all-of-the-semester.html#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:00:30 +0000 Ron Kness http://www.gibill.com/blog/17973.html My school has an 11-week semester with one week off prior to starting the next semester. According to my school I am going to school full time as long as I achieve 12 or more credit hours per semester. Because of this I enrolled in two 11-week classes for 6 and 4 credits totaling ten credits and one accelerated course which was for 4 credits but it was only 5.5 weeks long instead of 11 weeks. This means that for the semester I achieved 14 credits, but I was told by the GI Bill that for the second half of the semester I would not receive full housing benefits because I was not going to school full time. Is this correct? – Damon

Unfortunately it is Damon, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Why would they pay your a full housing allowance when you did not meet the full-time credit floor for the second half of the semester?

How that works is your monthly Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance is based on the zip code of your school AND the number of credits you are taking each month (and actually broken down further into the number of credits each day). So while you were taking 14 credits, which was considered full-time, you got the full housing allowance paid at the rate of an E-5 with dependents.

However, once your accelerated class ended, the day after it ended, you were taking 10 credits which is below the full-time credit amount – hence your housing allowance would drop to 10/12^th of what it would was when you were taking a full-time load. But how much difference does it make?

Assuming you were getting the average housing allowance of $1,200 per month, 10/12^th of that amount would be $1,000. So to put it in perspective, for the period when you were only taking 10 credits, you would get the $1,000.  The actual calculation get much more involved than what I showed here, but that will give you an idea of the impact on your housing allowance.

Actually this was a change brought about by the implementation of GI Bill 2.0. Before the change you would have gotten the full housing allowance by just taking 7 credits the whole semester.

You are asking two separate questions Thomas. Question one is are there any schools that would let me attend exclusively online? Question two asks whether you can do so while still receiving the whole housing allowance, or as you call it bah, which is not really correct.

To answer question one, yes there are plenty of schools offering online-only programs resulting in degrees all the way up to the doctorate level.

To answer question two, no you cannot get the full Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance by attending school exclusively online. If you take enough credits to put your rate of pursuit at full-time, you would get the full online-only rate of 673.50 per month.

By using the Post 9/11 GI Bill, the VA will pay your tuition and fees directly to your schools. You will get the $673.50 per month and $41.67 per credit in a book stipend (up to the $1,000 per year maximum). Since you are working a full-time job, you are not fully dependent on your housing allowance for living expenses. I wouldn’t worry about if I would get the full housing allowance or not. While it would be nice to get the extra money, getting your degree is far more important and in the end will be worth far more than what you lost in housing allowance money.

Justin, did you expect your GI Bill payments to keep coming after you quit school? It sounds like it from your question that you were surprised when they stopped. As you found out, you have to go to school to get the money – the GI Bill isn’t a free lunch program.

As far as your housing allowance question, and with it not being available then, it’s one of two things. Either you are using the Montgomery GI Bill, which doesn’t have a housing allowance component to it, or you were using the Post 9/11 GI Bill, but were going to school online before October 1, 2011.

If you are using the Montgomery GI Bill, then you get a fixed $1,473 per month, if you had served for three years or more and your rate of pursuit is full-time. But, out of that amount, you have to pay your own tuition, fees, books and any other education-related expenses.

If you were an online-only student using the Post 9/11 GI Bill before October, then you were not authorized the housing allowance. The $673.50 per month housing allowance for online-only students came about as a result of the implementation of that portion of the GI Bill 2.0 on October 1, 2011. But, the VA did pay your tuition and fees and you received a book stipend once each semester.

To get back in school, you can do one of two things. You can get an appointment with Devry’s VA Certifying Official and have that person certify you for what you have left on your GI Bill or you can submit VA Form 22-1990 and get another Certification of Eligibility (COE) to see what you have left for months of eligibility. Your school will need an up-to-date COE when you enroll again as a GI Bill student.

The phone number Timothy is 1-888-442-4551, but I can most likely tell you why your Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance fell – the rules changed on you. One of the changes as a result of passing the GI Bill 2.0 was changing the calculation of the housing allowance from one of the zip code of the school paid at the rate of an E-5 with dependents to also basing the amount on the number of credits you are taking compared to the number of credits your school considers to be full-time.

So before August 1, 2011, if your school considered 12 credits as full-time and you were taking 7 credits, you still got the full housing amount. However, after August 1st, if you take 7 credits, you would only get 7/12^th of the full amount. While that calculates out to 58.33 %, you would actually get 60% as the VA rounds up or down to the nearest tenth.

I know it sucks to have the rules changed like that especially when your expenses are geared to receiving a certain amount, but to pay for the benefits added by the GI Bill 2.0, something had to give, so that there was a zero increase in the cost of the whole Post 9/11 GI Bill program – re-figuring the housing allowance was one of the things that changed.

You would get one or the other housing allowance rate Kyle – not both, but it was a good try. The way it works is if you are a full-time student and take all your classes online, you would get the $673.50 per month Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance amount. However, if you are a full-time student and take just one class per semester at a traditional “brick and mortar” school, you would get the full housing allowance amount.

Your housing allowance would be calculated based on the zip code of your school and paid at the pay grade of an E-5 with dependents. Of course, in both instances if you are less than full-time, your housing allowance would be prorated to a lesser amount based on the number of credits you are taking verses the number of credits your school considers to be full-time.

The trick to taking the classes in the traditional setting is the class you take has to apply to your degree plan. If not, the VA will not pay for it and it would not count as a class that would qualify you for the full housing allowance amount. Then you would get the online housing amount of $673.50, so it is important that you take a class each semester that applies to your degree plan.

Work with your college that will be granting your degree, so they can arrange which classes you can take at a traditional school. Once you have finished those classes, your brick and mortar school will have to transcript those credits to your degree-granting school (your online school), so those classes can be credited to your degree plan.

Hi Lindsey. Because you have waited to start school, you now can use your Post 9/11 GI Bill for a cosmetology course. One of the changes from the GI Bill 2.0 that took effect on October 1^st now allows the New GI Bill to pay for vocational-type courses regardless of where they are taught. Previous to that date, the Post 9/11 GI Bill would only pay for some non-degree granting courses if they were taught at a school also granting degrees.

So if you had a full three years of service, you should have 36 months of benefits that you can use for your school. The VA will pay your tuition and eligible fees and you will get a monthly housing allowance based on the zip code of your school and paid at the pay grade of an E-5 with dependents. Because vocational-type schools normally don’t run on a school credit basis like colleges do, you would get a book stipend of $83 per month instead of the $41.67 per credit as you would in a degree-granting program.

Cosmetology is a good career choice. According to the Bureau of Labor, it is a field projected to grow at a rate of 20% or more out through 2018. While the hourly pay isn’t much ($10.94 per hour on average), tips more than make up for the low hourly pay.

With you having your own Post 9/11 GI Bill Michael, it is irrelevant that your wife will still be in the Navy. You will receive the same benefits as you would if she was retired also.

If you plan on attending a public school, the VA will pay actual tuition and eligible fee charges in full since the GI Bill 2.0 change is now in effect. If you plan on attending a private school, they will pay up to $17,500 in tuition and fees. You would be responsible for the difference unless your school is in the Yellow Ribbon Program and then they could pay up to half of that difference and the VA would pay an equal amount.

Either way, public or private school, you will get a monthly housing allowance based on the zip code of your school and the number of credits you are taking. It is paid at the pay grade of an E-5 with dependents.

If you take at least the number of credits your school considers to be full-time, you would get the full housing allowance. If you take a lesser number of credits, then your housing allowance would be prorated down.

You will also get a book stipend calculated at $41.67 per credit with an annual academic cap of $1,000 per year.

To get the full Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance amount Dylan, you now have to take the minimum number of credits your school considers to be full-time. To qualify for any housing allowance at all, you have to take at least 51% of the full-time amount.

Before August 1^st, you could have gotten the full housing allowance amount by taking the minimum number of credits, but not now. For example, if your school uses 12 credits as their full-time amount, then you would have to take 7 credits to qualify for any housing allowance at all or 12 credits to get the full amount. Taking 7 credits would get you 7/12^th of the full amount.

The housing allowance is calculated based off of the zip code of your school and paid at the pay grade of an E-5 with dependents and now also according to the number of credits you take.

You are also authorized the book stipend at the rate of $41.67 per credit with an annual cap of $1,000 – enough for 24 credits per year.

The VA will pay your tuition and fees directly to your school. If you are attending a public school, then the VA pays actual tuition and fee charges. If you are attending a private school, then they will pay up to $17,500 per year. Any tuition/fee expenses over that amount would be your responsibility to pay unless you qualify for the Yellow Ribbon Program and your school is a Yellow Ribbon school. In that case, the amount left for you to pay would be greatly reduced or could even be zero.