Posts Tagged ‘qualifying for the GI Bill’

That is correct Scott. When you signed up for the Student Loan Repayment Program (SLRP), you incurred a three-year obligation. Whether you used the program or not is immaterial, it still cost you three years of eligibility you could have had for the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

The reason why you only have two years of Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility is you can’t use the same period of service for both SLRP and the GI Bill, hence that is why they credited you with only two years of Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility.

The one thing that is puzzling to me is why would you sign up for SLRP in the first place, if you didn’t already have existing student loans at the time you enlisted? SLRP serves no other purpose than to pay off student loans you had prior to enlisting. I’m thinking you did not fully understand the program or didn’t know the effect it would have on your Post 9/11 GI Bill.

So with two years of Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility, you are at the 80% tier where otherwise, without having signed up for SLRP, you would have been at the 100% level.

It is unfortunate that we sometimes have to learn lessons the hard way, but hopefully other readers can learn from this and fully investigate program they don’t understand before signing up for them.

National Guard members can be eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill Scott, but the rules are slightly different than their active duty brethren, so it can be confusing. For Selected Reserve (SELRES) members (National Guard and Reserve) you have to have served for at least 90 days on a Title 10 order in support of a contingency operation after September 10, 2001 to qualify for the Post 9/11 GI Bill. A typical one-year deployment would put you at the 60% tier. If you have multiple deployments adding up to three years of Title 10 time, you can attain the 100% tier.

The biggest difference is when it comes to qualifying for the transfer of benefits option. For the active duty folks, they have be at the 100% tier before they can use the transfer option. For the SELRES, they can transfer at a percentage less than 100%. In both cases, members must have served for at least six years and agree to serve an additional four years.

As far as the Montgomery GI Bill, there are two of them – one for active duty, the Montgomery GI Bill-AD (MGIB-AD) and another one for the SELRES, the  Montgomery GI Bill – SR (MGIB-SR).

The MGIB-SR doesn’t pay much though ($339 per month and you have to pay all your own education expenses). Also, your MGIB-SR benefits expire once you separate from the Reserve Component or 10 years from your Notice of Benefits Eligibility (NOBE) date. Whether you are eligible for the GI Bill 2.0 flight training changes will depend on if you have established Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility or not.

Yes Christan, it would. I’m assuming you had served at least a three-year enlistment when you re-enlisted. With at least three years after September 10, 2001 ending in an Honorable discharge, you would have 36 months of Post 9/11 GI Bill at the 100% benefit rate to use to further your education.

On the DD 214 that you received when you got out, it should show Honorable as the type of discharge from your first enlistment.  Because that enlistment was within the qualifying period, that locked in your Post 9/11 GI Bill education benefits. Just submit VA Form 22-1990 from the eBenefits website to get your Certificate of Eligibility that you will need when enrolling in school.

Should you decide to try and get your BCD upgraded to Honorable, you can submit DD Form 293 to the Army Discharge Review Board. There are not any guarantees they will upgrade it and it can take up to a year for a decision, but at least it is an avenue of appeal. This Board handles cases for those getting out within the last 15 years. If it will be longer than that when you apply, then you would use DD Form 149 and submit it to the Board of Corrections to Military Records.

You didn’t mention which GI Bill you had Richard, but because you were discharged 5 years before the Post 9/11 GI Bill started, I’m assuming you are talking about the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB). The MGIB has a 10-year delimitation date, so it will expire on your discharge anniversary date in 2014, meaning you still have about 3 years to use your education benefits before they are gone.

Whether you know it or not, you are also eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill. As I said earlier, that GI Bill started in 2009, but the eligibility date goes back to September 10, 2001. Because you are eligible for two or more GI Bills, under the Rule of 48 you could get a maximum of 48 months of entitlement.

Most likely you still have 36 months of MGIB benefits, so you could either switch to the Post 9/11 GI Bill now and use your 36 months under that GI Bill or you could use up your 36 months under the MGIB, then switch to the Post 9/11 GI Bill to get an additional 12 months of education benefit.

If you switch to the Post 9/11 GI Bill with all 36 months of MGIB benefits intact, then you would get your $1,200 MGIB contribution back once you used up your Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. If you use up all your MGIB and then swtich, you don’t get any of your contribution back. So whether you want the additional 12 months of benefits or your $1,200 back, at least you have a couple of choices.