Q: Can the GI Bill be split up among 3 dependents? Can the GI Bill be transferred from one child to another? The GI Bill will be coming from my husband, the children’s step-father. Thank you!
A: Yes and yes, but with a caveat, actually two. First, for your husband to transfer Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to your children, he has to have formally gone through the adoption process. One of the reasons is the children have to show up as his dependents in DEERS because the transfer process uses DEERS as their database of record.
Second, he can make transfer requests as long as he is currently serving, has at least four years left on his enlistment and has served for at least six years on active duty – less active duty time is required if he is in the National Guard or Reserves. If he is within four years of retiring, then he just has to make sure his enlistment would take him out to 20 years.
To make transfer requests, all he has to do is go to the milConnect Website and enter into each child’s record the number of months he wishes to transfer. Once the requests are approved, then each child has to go to the eBenefits website and submit VA Form 22-1990e to get their Certificates of Eligibility.
As far as transferring Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits from one child to another, yes, your husband can do that even after retiring. He can revoke and reallocate to any of the children already having or have had benefits. However, he has to make the revoke/reallocate requests via a letter to the VA.
-
-
-
-
Stumble!
I receive this email from the VA this morning: “We will start accepting applications for the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP)on May 15th for training that begins on or after July 1, 2012. If you are an unemployed Veteran, you may be eligible to receive 12 months of training assistance equal to the full-time monthly payment rate under the Montgomery GI Bill-Active Duty program (currently $1,473 per month). You must pursue a program approved for VA benefits offered by a community college or technical school. The program must lead to a high demand occupation and result in an Associate Degree, Non-College Degree or a Certificate. Don’t forget to sign up early as participation in the program is limited to a total of 99,000 Veterans with only 45,000 Veterans allowed to participate prior to October 1, 2012.
VA will publish more details on the program as they become available at our VOW website.
Thank you for your interest and please feel free to pass this message on to another Veteran.
Sincerely,
Curtis L. Coy
Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Opportunity
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs”
I”ll keep sending out information as I receive it.
Ron
-
-
-
-
Q: I plan to use my Post 9/11 GI Bill to get my MBA next year. I know that it pays directly to the school and not to the student. I will be a full-time online student so I know I will only get the $672 to live on, which is not enough. What options do I have for supplementing my income while in school?
A: I just want to clarify something you said –“ I know that it pays directly to the school and not to the student.” The VA pays your school directly only for your tuition and fees if you are using the Post 9/11 GI Bill. Once each semester, you would get the book stipend paying $41.67 per credit and monthly the housing stipend of $673.50 being you go to school only online.
There is a simple way for you to get the full housing amount which will be around double what you would get by going to school just online. The secret is to take at least one class per semester on campus that applies to your degree plan. They can be just one-credit classes at a local school if you have some of those classes in your degree plan. The key is to be sure the classes you take on campus apply to your degree plan. Otherwise if not, the VA would not pay for the class and it would not count toward your full housing allowance.
To make other income, the easiest is to get a part-time job. Lower paying jobs are fairly easy to get and require little skill. If you are trained in something, go after something in your field.
Depending on if they are tuition-fenced or not, meaning dedicated to be used strictly for tuition, scholarships and grants can also be a good source of extra money. However, if they are fenced, then it won’t generate extra money as your GI Bill would pay less. Non-fenced money would add to your income as it isn’t offset by the VA.
-
-
-
-
Q: Good morning! I have 6 months and 28 days remaining on my Post 9/11 GI Bill that I haven’t used yet. I wish to transfer this to my spouse. I entered active duty Army 11/03-11/07Army Reserves: 07/08- present. My current STRAP US ARMY officer obligation ends DEC 2015, just short of 4 remaining years…. can I add a few months on and transfer these benefits to my spouse? Thanks!
A: If you are within four years of reaching your 20-year mark, then you don’t need a full four years left on your enlistment to transfer Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. You just have to ensure your current enlistment takes you up to the 20-year mark at the time you make your transfer request or do an extension that takes you up to retirement.
It looks like you meet the six-year past service requirement, so once your enlistment/extension is in place, then go to the milConnect website. Once inside, you will see your spouse’s record.
Just enter in the number of months you wish to give her. After you submit the request, keep coming back around 8 to 10 weeks later and look for the status to have changed to “Request Approved”. Once you see that happen, then your spouse can go to the eBenefits website and request her Certificate of Eligibility by submitting VA Form 22-1990e.
When she enrolls in school, she will need her certificate so her school knows she is using Post 9/1 GI Bill benefits.
When she starts using her benefits, her tuition and fees should be paid directly to her school by the VA and she will get a book stipend once each semester and a housing allowance once each month.
-
-
-
-
Q: I have received an other-than-honorable discharge for drug abuse which is entirely false, but dealing with it none-the-less. I have served 7 years and have never reenlisted so technically I am still on my first term. Does this still mean I don’t qualify even though I paid my money and served over 6 years honorably?
A: Yep, that is what it means. If this had been your second enlistment and your first one had ended honorably, then you would be eligible to use your Post 9/11 GI Bill or Montgomery GI Bill benefits, but being this is still your first enlistment, you will not. How long you served and whether you paid your money into the GI Bill or not has no bearing on you being able to use your GI Bill if you have an other-than-honorable discharge.
However, it sounds like you think the reason for you getting the discharge may not be right. If so, and you have the documentation to prove your case, fight it. You can start by submitting DD form 293 to your service branch Discharge Review Board. It can take up to a year to hear back with their decision and there are no guarantees, but it is an avenue of appeal if you feel you have been wronged.
If their decision comes back disapproved, you can appeal it one step higher by filling out DD Form 149 to the Military Corrections Board of your service branch. If they disapprove your request, then that is the end of the line.
-
-
-
-
Q: If I do online courses do I still get the same money as a full time student attending a school?
A: No you don’t. Under GI Bill 2.0 changes, students taking all their classes online only get up to $673.50 per month in Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance – about half of the on-campus national average. Before GI Bill 2.0 though, online-only students were not authorized any housing allowance.
However, there is a work-around where you can get the full housing allowance authorized for the zip code of your school if you are classified as a full-time student. All you have to do is take at least one course on campus per semester that applies to your degree plan. Your on-campus class can be at any accredited school.
The key to making this work is your on-campus classes have to apply to your degree plan. They can be just a one-credit classes if that is what you need. Why? Because if they don’t apply to your degree plan, the VA will not pay for them or recognize them as being legitimate classes and hence those credits would not apply to the total amount you would need to get the traditional student housing allowance – just the online-only housing allowance.
-
-
-
-
Q: Having never participated/registered for the Montgomery GI Bill, am I eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill? How do I go about registering?
A: I’ll give you my standard answer – it depends. If you meet the eligibility requirement of having served for at least 90 days on a Title 10 order after September 10, 2001, then you at least meet the minimum Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility tier of 40%. Once you have at least three years of qualifying service, you will be at the 100% level. Anything in between will place you on a corresponding tier.
Your tier percentage makes a difference because if you are at less than 100%, you can’t use the Yellow Ribbon feature of the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
There really isn’t any registering to getting the Post 9/11 GI Bill. If you are eligible for it., then send in VA Form 22-1990 from the eBenefits website. In return, you will get your Certificate of Eligibility that will show how many months of benefits you have and at what percentage. You will have to hand in a copy of your certificate to your school when you enroll.
Keep in mind this is the amount of service required just for you to use your Post 9/11 GI Bill. If you have plans to transfer any or all benefits to a spouse or dependent, then you need to have served for at least six years, be currently serving at the time of your request and generally have at least four years left on your enlistment at the time you make your transfer request.
-
-
-
-
Q: I enlisted in 1988 and ETS’d in 1991. I then used my G.I. Bill / Army College Fund to pay for a Bachelor’s degree. I re-entered service in 1998 as a commissioned officer, and am still serving. Am I entitled to the Post 9/11 GI Bill to transfer to my child?
A: You are, but it won’t be 36 months worth like you had under the Montgomery GI Bill. Under the Rule of 48, if you are eligible for two or more GI Bills, the most combined months of benefits that you can get is 48. So if you used 36 months before, then the most you could get under the Post 9/11 GI Bill and transfer to your daughter would be 12 months.
However, 12 months is better than nothing. To start the transfer process, be sure you have at least four years left on your enlistment. If you have less than four years until you are retirement eligible at 20 years of service, then you could have a lesser amount of additional required time left on your enlistment and still get your transfer request approved.
Once the request is approved, then your child has to request his/her Certificate of Eligibility from the eBenefits website by submitting VA Form 22-1990e. S/he will need to be at least graduated from high school or age 18 before requesting his/her certificate. A copy of it will have to be handed in when registering for school as a GI Bill student using transferred benefits.
-
-
-
-
Q: I don’t know how many active duty months I have all together, and I am needing to figure this out soon so I can figure out what GI Bill I can use. Is there anywhere I can go to see how many months I’ve served on active duty? I am National Guard, and I have Basic Training, AIT, and a bunch of training I did in preparation for my deployment to Iraq. I just need to find out exactly how many months I have, and where I can go to find that. Thanks.
A: No there isn’t a place where you can see how many qualifying months you have for the Post 9/11 GI Bill, but I can give you some guidelines and you can figure it out for yourself.
First, your deployment time on Title 10 orders in support of contingency operations count. So assuming you have a one-year tour on those orders, you have at least 36 months of education benefits at the 60% level of repayment.
The time you spent in Basic Training and AIT will not count until you have at least 24 months of qualifying time, and then those months will kick in and add to your eligibility, but for right now they do not count.
As far as your train-up time, it may or may not count – it depends on the type of orders you were on at the time. If they were Title 10 or Title 32 (sec.502f) then the time will count. However if they were just plain Title 32 or some other type order, then most likely that time will not count.
You could always go to the eBenefits website and request your Certificate of Eligibility by submitting VA Form 22-1990. That will show your months of unused benefits and your tier percentage.
-
-
-
-
Q: I have a question about the transfer of benefits to dependents based on somewhat unique circumstances & dates. I’m a commissioned officer, having started OTS on 19 Aug 2002 (my pay date) and commissioning on 8 Nov 2002. However, I am expecting to be involuntarily separated (under honorable conditions, due to failure to be promoted) in 31 Jul 2012 or 31 Aug 2012. So you can see I might make the 10 years of service by about 10 days if I can make it to August. My transfer request date was 30 Nov 2010, prior to any of the promotion boards, and my obligation end date is 29 Nov 2014. Obviously, if I am involuntarily separated, I can’t reach 2014. So my questions are: 1) Based on these dates, if I am not separated until Aug 2012 will my dependents get to keep these benefits? 2) Same scenario, but if I have another child (let’s say in July 2012) after my date of separation is established (let’s say March 2012) but before I leave active duty (on 31 Aug 2012), will I be able to add that child to the list beneficiaries? I can’t find clarification for adding dependents to existing transfers after a date of separation is established prior to the obligation end date.
A: The way the Post 9/11 GI Bill transfer of benefits rules read, it says if you “had at least 10 years of service in the Armed Forces (active duty and/or Selected Reserve) on the date of your transfer request approval, and are precluded by either standard policy (Service or DoD) or statute from committing to 4 additional years, and agree to serve for the maximum amount of time allowed by such policy or statute”, your dependents should be able to keep their benefits.
My concern is the “had at least 10 years of service in the Armed Forces (active duty and/or Selected Reserve) on the date of your transfer request approval . . .” part. Your transfer request date was in November 2010, so your approval date was most likely at the end of 2010 or early in 2011 at which point you only had a little over 8 years of service. Based on this policy, I think your dependent benefits could be in jeopardy, but the final decision will have to be made by the VA.
What I can tell you about transferring benefits to a child after separating is that if you had not previously transferred benefits to that child while still serving, you can’t make a transfer to him/her after you have retired. The way the transfer rules read, to get a transfer request approved, you have to be currently serving at the time you make the request. So if the child has not been born yet while you are still serving, then you can’t make a request yet.
What you can do after retiring though is to manage any transferred benefits you have made while still serving. For example after you retire, if one child will not use the benefits you transferred to him or her, you can revoke those benefits and either use them yourself or transfer them to another child already having received transferred benefits.
-
-
-
-
