Posts Tagged ‘GI Bill Rates’

All great question Crystal! I’ll do my best to answer them.

It sounds like you know the maximum Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance you can get as a full-time online-only student is $673.50. As far as tuition, most online schools do not differentiate between resident and non-resident students for their online programs as they have a set online tuition rate.

However, if your school does have different rates, then the VA will pay the tuition amount that a resident student would pay. You would be responsible for the difference between the resident and non-resident amount. In addition to your housing allowance, you would also get the book stipend once each semester.

As far as the number of credits you take having an effect on how long you benefits last, it won’t and here is why. If you are at least a full-time student, Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility use is determined by the number of days you are in school per month. So in your case, you use up 30 days of eligibility for each 30 days you are in school. Whatever you have left you can use toward getting your master’s degree.

I don’t think you are interpreting what you are reading correctly. When you enter the military, you still maintain a state residency, usually from the state where you lived when you entered the military. But it really won’t make any difference if you are still serving because the Post 9/11 GI Bill will pay all of your wife’s tuition and fees if she attends a public school and up to $17,500 per year if she goes to a private or foreign school.

I don’t know if you are aware of the transfer of benefits service requirements or not. Before you can make a transfer request, you have to have served for at least six years of which three of those yeas had to be after September 10, 2001. The second requirement is you have to agree to serve an additional four years before a transfer request is approved. If you meet these two service requirements, then you can make a transfer request and get it approved.

If you are still serving when your wife starts school, she would not be eligible for the housing allowance (because you are already drawing BAH for her). If she waits to start school until you are out of the service, then she would get the housing allowance based on the zip code of her school and the number of credits she is taking. Regardless of your serving status, she will get the book stipend of $41.67 per credit, up to $1,000 per year.

What it means Amanda, is your husband qualifies for only 50% of the Post 9/11 GI Bill, and when he transferred some of his Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to you, you inherited his percentage. Financially what it means is you get 50% your tuition paid directly to your school by the VA and you get 50% of the full housing allowance and 50% of the book stipend, up to a maximum of $500 per year (50% of the $1,000 cap).

Of course to qualify for 50% of the full housing allowance, you have to be taking at least the minimum number of credits that you school considers to be full-time. So if your school considers 12 credits as a full-time credit load, then you would have to take 12 credits to get your 50% in housing allowance. You are taking 14, so I assume you should be considered full-time as that is quite a load in itself.

Due to a GI Bill 2.0 change that took effect on August 1^st, the housing allowance is directly related to the number of credits a student is taking. For example, if you were only taking 7 credits, then you would get 50% of 7/12^th of the housing allowance.

As far as your tuition, a change to the Post 9/11 GI Bill eliminated the in-state maximums, so the VA is now paying actual tuition charges if you attend a public school. In your case, they will pay 50% of the actual charges.

Under the GI Bill 2.0 change, the cap for foreign and private schools and out-state tuition will be $17,500 per year. If the tuition is less, the VA will pay less as they pay actual charges up to the cap, but not $17,500 across the board.

If the charges at your daughter’s potential school would have been higher than the new cap of $17,500, and she is at the 100% Post 9/11 GI Bill level, then she could also use the Yellow Ribbon program to help pay the difference between what the Post 9/11 GI Bill would pay and what her school charges. Under the agreement and  if her school is a Yellow Ribbon school, her school could pay up to half of the difference and the VA would pay an equal amount.

If her school is not a Yellow Ribbon school, then she (or you) would be responsible to pay the difference, but it looks like all of her tuition should be covered under the new cap. Actually $10,200 is a good rate for a private school in the East.