Some 1.6 million veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will see their GI Bill benefits more than double from approximately $40,000 to $90,000 as the new Post-9/11 GI Bill goes into effect today.
Originally intended to cover 100 percent of veterans’ higher education costs, the GI Bill — known as the Montgomery GI Bill in its current form — hasn’t kept pace with the rising costs of college and now covers only an estimated 60 to 70 percent of the average cost of a four-year public college or university, or the average cost of two years at a private school.
While military recruiters often use the promise of a GI Bill–financed college education as a major selling point for potential enlistees, because the current Montgomery GI Bill generally falls far short of paying for school in full, some veterans find themselves having to rely on student loans or other financing to pay for their remaining college costs not covered by their GI benefits; other veterans may not find it possible to afford to attend college at all.
Limitations of the Montgomery GI Bill
Under the Montgomery GI Bill, which expires today, the Post-9/11 GI Bill goes into effect, veterans are required to make a nonrefundable contribution of $1,200 — $100 a month for the first 12 months they’re on active duty — in order to be eligible for their education benefits.
While 95 percent of members of the military make that contribution, nearly one-third of eligible veterans don’t use any of their Montgomery GI education benefits, and almost 10 percent use only a portion of their benefits, often because the benefits they accrue aren’t enough to pay for a full college education without college loans or other additional financial aid.
Over the last few years, as it became clear that the Montgomery GI Bill was no longer fulfilling the mission of the original GI Bill to make it easier for veterans to afford to go to college, legislators, veterans organizations, and supporters of the military grew increasingly critical of the current GI Bill, calling for many of the changes that will go into effect with the new Post-9/11 GI Bill.
“There’s a moral imperative for us to provide for veterans, and there is a practical benefit to educating these men and women who have served our country,” said James Wright, former president of Dartmouth College and GI Bill advocate. “For us to be failing to live up to that responsibility is unconscionable.”
Financial Aid Takes Over Where GI Bill Benefits Leave Off
Those veterans who have been using their Montgomery GI benefits have often had to rely on student loans and other forms of financing to help pay for school costs not covered by their GI benefits.
Veterans, like all college students, may apply for federal financial aid, but since the government regards GI benefits as income when determining a student’s financial need, veterans seeking to supplement their Montgomery GI benefits with federal student aid may not be able to qualify for need-based federal grants or subsidized student loans. Precluded from qualifying for low-income grants and college loans, some veterans have been forced to turn to higher-interest unsubsidized federal student loans, private student loans, and credit cards to pay for school.
Benefits of the New GI Bill
To restore veterans’ education benefits to a level similar to those college benefits offered to World War II veterans under the original GI Bill, the new Post-9/11 GI Bill will expand on current Montgomery GI education benefits, covering everything from full tuition costs to textbooks to monthly living expenses:
* Tuition payments up to the full cost of tuition at the most expensive public college or university in a veteran’s home state; as tuition rises, so will a veteran’s education benefits
* No required monetary contribution
* Yearly stipend of up to $1,000 for books and supplies
* Up to $1,200 (up to $100 a month) for tutoring services
* Monthly housing stipend determined by local costs of living
* One-time payment of up to $500 for certain veterans who relocate from rural areas
The Post-9/11 GI Bill will also grant veterans up to 15 years after their last round of active duty to use their benefits; the Montgomery GI Bill offers only 10 years.
Completely new with the Post-9/11 GI Bill is the ability for veterans to transfer their GI benefits to their spouse and children; full details and requirements of this provision will be released later on this year. The Montgomery GI Bill has no such transferability of benefits.
Service Requirements for the New GI Bill
To qualify for partial benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, veterans will only need to have served 30 days in continuous active duty or a total of 90 days in non-continuous active duty since Sept. 11, 2001.
Partial and full benefits of the new GI Bill won’t go into effect until Aug. 1, 2009, during the second stage of the two-step implementation process, to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs enough time to transition into the new program.
But in the interim, veterans who have served for at least three years in active duty and are currently using their Montgomery GI Bill benefits as full-time students will see their monthly benefits increase from $1,101 to $1,321, effective August 1 of this year; full-time students with less than three years of active-duty service will see an increase in their monthly benefits from $894 to $1,073.
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