Hi! I wanted to see if anyone has any experience using the GI Bill with the Presidential Scholarship for an OOS student. My husband has 13 months left of full Post 9-11 GI Bill to split between our boys. We were going to save it for our youngest since our oldest has the Presidential Scholarship but with the first year being more expensive with on campus housing we are thinking of using it for one semester to offset the out of pocket expense. (plus he may only be in long enough to use one year for our youngest) I have talked to Veteran Affairs, Scholarships & Student Receivables but each knows how their area works & I thought parents/students that have actually used it might could tie it all together better for us.
First…Does a semester equal 4 months for GI Bill purposes? Can you just use is for one semester?
What I put together from the three offices is that my sons account would basically be charged tuition, housing, meals & fees. The GI Bill would be credited for the cost of in state tuition (approximately $4900) plus required course fees (not parking, etc) & then the $12,475 for Presidential & any other scholarships (right now he has a small music scholarship too and has auditioned for MDB) would be credited to the balance of his account. That balance, if any, is what we would owe or if it went over it would be refunded to us. Does this sound right? Then the housing allowance would be sent directly to us & we could apply that toward housing the next semester.
Thanks for any information!
My D is an OOS student with the GI Bill and Presidential. My D has used her GI Bill for 4 semester, she has 20 months and 24 days remaining, so over 4 semesters she has used 15months and 6 days. Each semester is a little different as far as length… Because she is OOS and Alabama participates in Yellow Ribbon GI BIll/YR pays all of her tuition and course fees and then her Scholarship is applied, excess fund are returned to D. D receives the Book stipend and BAH direct deposited to her account. I believe starting next yr GI Bill Students are only charged in state tuition and YR will become non existent. BAH is prorated based on actual days in school during partial months. D only has one yr remaining and we have decided to save her remaining GI Bill to cover Law School. The VA office would be who you would discuss only using one semester of GI Bill, my guess is they just need to be aware. FYI make sure your student has the VA forms signed off during advising at BB.
@Longsx3 Thanks for the info! That explains why some things I see say YR pays OOS tuition & other say OOS are charged in state tuition.
@tammyeL YR at Bama does pay OOS, but like I said there is a change coming I think it takes affect in the Fall and GI Bill recipients no longer pay OOS tuition. Feel free to msg me with any other questions. In case you are not aware, BAMA is awesome with their scholarships at most schools scholarships are written to cover tuition only and simply offset the GiBill.
@Longsx3
Good to know that YR may be disappearing after next year. If so, then would it be better for the family to take 2 semesters and bank the excess for their next child? or would that be a waste?
Does anyone have a contact at UA to ask questions? My husband is retired USMC, but we’ve never looked into eligibility for these benefits. We have a soph and an incoming freshman (and we’re OOS) so we could use all the tuition help possible. Thank you!
Thanks @Longsx3! At first we didn’t realize it was all in the “wording” of the scholarship. It was probably something on this board that made me look into it. So… if YR goes away and OOS GI Bill recipients are charged in state tuition rates, would that change their Presidential Scholarship to the in state rate?
We wondered about that too @mom2collegekids.
@My3Boys01 the contact info is:
Veteran and Military Affairs
Email- vma@bama.ua.edu
Phone-(205)348-0983
@mom2collegekids @TammyeL If the presidential scholarship is switched to instate for OOS GI Bill kids then the numbers would not support using the scholarship for 2 semesters and banking the refund because if child 2 goes private the value of 1 semester of GI Bill is about 10K for private schools. Also no one has said anything about how this will affect presidential scholarships at Bama or what will happen for the semesters the student isn’t using the GI Bill who are OOS residents, I assume veterans dependents will then be charged OOS tuition when not using the GI Bill.
@My3Boys01 your H is likely eligible to use his own GI Bill but you had to be on active duty at the time of transfer, Here are the details :The Department of Defense (DoD) is authorized to allow individuals who, on or after August 1, 2009, have served at least 6 years in the Armed Forces and who agree to serve at least another 4 years in the Armed Forces to transfer unused entitlement to their Spouse. Once the member has reached their 10 year anniversary they may choose to transfer the benefit to any dependent(s) (spouse, children). The Department of Defense may, by regulation, impose additional eligibility requirements and limit the number of months transferable to not less than 18 months.
At the time they waived the 4 requirement for AD members who were within 4yrs of retirement. We had friends who missed being able to transfer by as little as a month.
Also your H would want to contact the VA not UA, the Va administers the GI Bill, UA would not have info on transferability.
I also need to clarify YR will not be relevant to OOS GI Bill students at Public institutions but will still be used (to the best of my knowledge) for private and for grad/law school students.
@tammyeL a scholarship has to state that it can be used for costs other than tuition, other wise the GI Bill is the last payor. (Think of tricare when you have another insurance)
I can give an example my D received a 30K a year scholarship at another school, their scholarship was for tuition purposes(which most admissions scholarships are). Tuition is 42k at this school: So their 30K scholarship would be applied to tuition first, the Gi Bill would have paid the the12k difference in tuition and she would lived off her BAH. However if their Scholarship could be used towards other educational expenses: Gi Bill and YR would have paid tuition, 30K Scholarship would have been applied to living expenses and overage returned and BAH could have been saved for Grad school. Admittedly I did not lobby very hard to have them change their wording because D wanted to attend Bama.
When D attends law school in 2016, she will negotiate so that she can keep any scholarships for living expenses.
@Longsx3 another question…someone told my husband he has to have 4 years left to serve for our boys to use the GI Bill. Does that sound right? I know they have to have 4 more years to serve to transfer it to a dependent, but do they have to have 4 more years to serve for a dependent to be able to use the benefits?
Use this calculator to get an idea. http://newgibill.org/calculator/
FYI committee recommendation is also that the housing portion of the GI Bill will go away in 2016 or 2017…I can’t remember. Don’t know if this recommendation will go thru or not but I’d use what you can now in case it does!
@tammyeL Here is the info from VA:
Available Benefits and Eligibility
Family members must be enrolled in the Defense Eligibility Enrollment Reporting System (DEERS) and be eligible for benefits at the time of transfer to receive transferred benefits.
The option to transfer is open to any member of the armed forces active duty or Selected Reserve, officer or enlisted who is eligible for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and meets the following criteria:
Has at least six years of service in the armed forces (active duty and/or Selected Reserve) on the date of approval and agrees to serve four additional years in the armed forces from the date of election.
Has at least 10 years of service in the armed forces (active duty and/or Selected Reserve) on the date of approval, is precluded by either standard policy (by Service Branch or DoD) or statute from committing to four additional years, and agrees to serve for the maximum amount of time allowed by such policy or statute.
Is or becomes retirement-eligible and agrees to serve an additional four years of service on or after Aug. 1, 2012. A Servicemember is considered to be retirement-eligible if he or she has completed 20 years of active federal service or 20 qualifying years as computed (pursuant to section 12732 of title 10 U.S.C.).
Transfer requests are submitted and approved while the member is in the armed forces.
@rdtsmith I don’t believe it will pass, but if it was to pass I believe the changes would not apply to anyone currently using benefits.
I sure hope not as it’s such a huge benefit.
OK, I’ll ask a semi-related question that should probably be in it’s own thread:
Son has a friend from high school that began college in a different state right after he graduated. He was only there for one or two semesters and decided to drop out (possibly for financial reasons, I am not sure of the details) and join the military.
He has been active duty since then (for about 2.5 years). He is currently in the process of getting a medical discharge.
He has been told that he is eligible for the GI Bill to complete school and that it will cover in-state tuition.
He wants to apply as a transfer student, so the classes he previous completed will be counted.
He told son that he was having an issue getting recognized as an in-state student at Bama, I am not certain what office he spoke with and/or if it was the result of his previous residence classification since he is transferring, but I looked up the requirements for in state residency and it seems that since he was active duty that he should be viewed as an independent student and that if he has an Alabama address, he should be viewed as an in-state student.
And the above comment in this thread says that GI Bill students might only be charged in state tuition next year.
He won’t be eligible for any type of merit aid, so if not covered by the GI Bill he won’t be able to attend. Who should I direct him to talk to, to get this all clarified since he’s hoping that he can begin in the fall.
@jrcsmom While a fairly common situation, it’s likely that many people at the admissions office will not be very familiar with it. The Office of Veteran and Military Affairs mentioned above should know the answer. I would also recommend that the student contact Rick Funk. He manages all of the admissions advisors and would likely know what needs to be done to reclassify the student as a resident.
@jrcsmom your friends son tuition will be covered by the gibill. He needs to contact the VA office at Bama.
Thanks, my son’s friend was able to get his issues worked out and although is still a little nervous about paying all his expenses (he seems reluctant to borrow any money, even the federal loans), he decided to enroll for next year and will be attending Bama Bound this summer as a transfer student.
So next year, from Bloomfield, Indiana’s 2012 class of 73 students - 2 will be at Bama.