Posts Tagged ‘GI Bill’
Veterans Organizations Thank Congress for Support
GI Bill Upgrade Package will bolster education, job growth for veterans
Today, five veterans organizations came together in thanking our members of Congress for putting aside their partisan differences to support improvements in educational and professional opportunities for our military veterans.
The GI Bill Upgrade will increase tuition coverage for veterans in the vast majority of states, and it will also expand coverage to tens of thousands of Americans serving in National Guard. It will accomplish all this while decreasing our deficit by an estimated $700 million.
This upgrade will also expand the number of schools and courses covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill, improve and expedite claims processing, provide coverage for vocational schools, and provide more work-study jobs for student veterans. All of these changes are imperative to the successful re-integration of our troops into the civilian world following their years of service to our country.
This bill has enjoyed a broad, bipartisan endorsement from a broad coalition of veterans organizations. These organizations thank our members of Congress for their support, and hope that President Obama will act quickly to sign this bill into law.
- Truman National Security Project
- Student Veterans of America
- VetPAC
- Democratic Party of Virginia Veterans & Military Families Caucus
- Veterans & Military Families for Progress (VMFP)
Emergency Payments for Veterans Awaiting VA Educational Benefits
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki has authorized advance payments up to $3,000 for Veterans who have applied for VA educational benefits and who have not yet received their monthly education payments.
If you are a Veteran who has applied for one of VA’s education programs and have not yet received your monthly benefit payment for the Fall 2009 term, you can submit a request for an advance payment on this website.
Advance payments will be issued by the U. S. Treasury within 3 workdays (Monday through Friday) following submission of this request. Payments will be in the form of a check sent through the U.S. mail. You should therefore anticipate an additional 3 days (excluding Sundays) for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver your check.
You can also visit one of VA’s 57 regional offices across the country to immediately receive an advance payment. You will need to bring a photo ID and your course schedule when you visit the regional office. A list of VA’s regional offices is available at www.vba.va.gov/VBA/benefits/offices.asp.
The advance payments will be reconciled with future education payments owed to you.
The amount of the advance payment will be determined as follows:
Post-9/11 GI Bill $3,000
Montgomery GI Bill – Active Duty $3,000
Montgomery GI Bill – Selected Reserve $1,000
Reserve Education Assistance Program $2,000
Post Vietnam Era Educational Assistance Programs $1,000
By completing this site, VA will be collecting personally identifiable information. If you choose not to provide this information over the internet you may visit a VA Regional Office to request assistance in person.
GI Bill delays frustrate more student vets
Grumbling about delays in Post-9/11 GI Bill payments is on the rise as veterans who expected the new education program to fully cover their college costs are wondering what happened to the money.
Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said he filed a Freedom of Information request on Wednesday to learn details about claims processing, including the number of certificates of eligibility filed and completed, the number of schools certifying enrollment and how many students are approved for payment.
“I am hearing from a lot of veterans who want to know when they are going to be paid,” Sullivan said. “VA has been telling everyone it takes 28 days to process a certificate of eligibility, but that doesn’t really tell the full story. In particular, I want to know what happens when someone applies and doesn’t get paid, or doesn’t get paid the amount they expect or doesn’t receive their living allowance. How many appeals have been filed and what is their status?”
WAGNER CALLS FOR FLEXIBILITY FOR GI BILL RECIPIENTS
Today, Democratic Nominee for Lieutenant Governor Jody Wagner called on colleges and universities in Virginia to maintain a flexible policy toward recipients of GI Bill grants in the coming weeks, many of whom have yet to receive their benefits. The GI Bill, championed by Senator Jim Webb, provides education funding for hundreds of thousands of recent veterans across the country. However, the program has been so successful that there’s currently a backlog of over 210,000 claims that have yet to be processed. With classes starting at many schools in the next two weeks-and final tuition bills due-many veterans could find themselves without the funds they need to remain registered.
Said Wagner, “The expanded GI Bill fulfills an important obligation we have to our veterans, that has been met successfully for generations: help them get the education and career training that they deserve. With thousands of veterans in Virginia still waiting on their benefits to arrive, I would strongly encourage our state colleges and universities in the Commonwealth to work with veterans and identify individuals who should be given extensions on their tuition dues. After all these men and women have done for our country, their focus in the coming days and weeks should be on their new classes-not whether they’ll be forced to withdraw because of an administrative snafu.”
The expanded GI Bill, signed into law last year, pays for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to attend in-state public colleges at no cost to them. They can also apply the funds towards the cost of an out-of-state or private college.
Soldiers Into Students
The new GI Bill went into effect this month, and President Obama marked that milestone last week when he addressed about 350 military veterans and advocates on the campus of George Mason University.
“It’s driven by the same simple logic that drove the first GI Bill,” Obama said of the legislation, passed by Congress last year and expected to help a quarter-million veterans pay for school by 2011. “You pick the school; we’ll help pick up the bill.”
GI Bill is Tool for Economic Recovery
President Barack Obama on Monday pitched the new military education benefits not only as a well-deserved reward for young veterans but also as an agent for the nation’s economic recovery, by helping train new leaders in the work force.
“The young post-9/11 veterans around the country can lead the way to a lasting economic recovery and become the glue that holds our communities together,” he told a crowd of servicemembers and educators on campus at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “They, too, can become the backbone of a growing American middle class.”
The new education benefits, passed by Congress last year and launched on Saturday, provide four years of tuition at any public university in a veteran’s home state for anyone who served at least three years on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001.