State Provided Education Benefits

In many states, tuition assistance can pertain to spouses or dependent children (including biological, step and adopted) is the sponsoring servicemember/veteran is deceased or disabled as a result of a service-connected incident.

In some programs, as little as a 40 percent disability rating qualifies for the benefit while other programs require a 100 percent disabled rating. Some of the spouse and dependent children programs also include (and some are restricted to) servicemembers whose status is listed as MIA/POW.

Tuition assistance offered by states can range from offering a full four-year, 100 percent, tuition-free education, to putting some form of a dollar or semester/hour limit on the state provided education benefit. Another common qualification requirement for tuition assistance is that the servicemember sponsor must be a resident of that state at the time of entry into the military. In addition, some states also mandate residency for a time period before military entry and after returning home. While many of the state provided education benefit programs apply to our recent combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, some states take their state-offered benefits all the way back to children of WWI veterans.

Some states also note their education benefit may be used in conjunction with the GI Bill, while others apply after exhausting the GI Bill. In one state, the unused benefit can be transferable to the veteran's dependent children, much like the unused Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefit. And if one child ends up not using the transferred benefit, the veteran may revoke and reallocate to another dependent child; however, the transfer option does not apply to a spouse.

Operation Recognition. Another fairly common state provided education benefit is offering Korean and WWII veterans the opportunity to get their high school diplomas. Many of these veterans were unable to complete their secondary education because they were drafted or decided to enlist into the military. For schools no longer in existence, diplomas are issued from the schools serving the veterans old school district.

Unique State Provided Education Benefits

Educational Opportunities for Children. For a select group of veterans, each of their children between the ages of 10 and 18 are provided financial aid annually to attend a state-supported elementary, high school, business college, vocational training school or other educational institution education of their choice. The select group of veterans include those who died or became totally disabled as a result of service in the Armed Forces during:

• WWI
• WWII
• Korea
• Vietnam
• or after February 1, 1955

Honorary Scholarships. A follow-on education benefit from the same state allows each of its counties to annually award one four-year scholarship to its primary university. The group competing for the scholarship is the children of servicemembers who served during the periods listed above.

The Vietnam Veterans Survivor Grant. This benefit is offered by a couple of states. In one state, the benefit pertains to children of veterans who served in the Vietnam geographical area and died as a result of a service-connected disability directly related to the conflict.

In the other state, it takes the requirement one step further and expands the benefit to include children and spouses, but then confines the benefit to where the veterans death was caused by or attributed to exposure to toxic chemicals during the conflict. So while the second state expanded the grant to include spouses, they restricted the cause of the death to just toxic chemical exposure.

Check with your Department of Military Affairs or Veterans Affairs in your state and ask what benefits may apply to you and your family.