I did a search for this topic before deciding to post. Hopefully my search was thorough enough and I’m not duplicating anything.
My husband and I transferred our GI Bill benefits to our kids years ago and our son is finally a second-semester senior. Acceptances are coming in and it’s almost time to accept a college. An email from one of his school’s Veteran’s offices suddenly made me realize it’s time to figure out how to finally use the benefits for him.
The VA pages weren’t as helpful as I was expecting. If you start off on the wrong one, you can go down rabbit holes trying to figure out how to actually get the right forms filled out and submitted. But once you know where to go, it’s quite easy.
Now that I’m done, here’s what I learned:
Do apply for benefits at least a month and a half before you’re going to need the Certificate of Eligibility (COE) for your child. Once the form is submitted, the VA says it takes about 30 days to process the claim and then mail out the COE.
Even if you have an acceptance to a likely school and are waiting on acceptance to your #1, if you need that COE in general, apply anyway. You can always change the school once you have the acceptance. But if you think your child will get into their #1, just apply with that school listed. You don’t have to be accepted to apply for benefits and you can always change the school later.
You can transfer benefits from child 1 to child 2, but if you transfer everything away from child 1, you can’t transfer anything back later. Leave at least 1 month designated in child 1’s account until the very end to enable future transfers back.
You can only make transfers between children once a year. So plan accordingly.
Here are the instructions for how to apply to use the benefits:
Form 22-1990E - Application for Family Member to Use Transferred Benefits
Make sure you’re not signed in to the site (log out if necessary)
Scroll down to resources, click on Apply for Benefits
Scroll to the green button Find your education benefits form
Applying for a new benefit
Answer the questions
Click Apply Now
Under the blue button is a link: Start your application without signing in (click the link, not the button) (if you don’t see the link, the site may have logged you in. Log out and you’ll see the link)
Fill out the form
Form 22-1995 - Request for Change of Program or Place of Training
Make sure you’re not signed in to the site (log out if necessary)
Scroll down to resources, click on Apply for Benefits
Scroll to the green button Find your education benefits form
Updating my program of study or place of training
Answer: Yes, I’m using a transferred benefit
Click Apply Now
Under the blue button is a link: Start your application without signing in (click the link, not the button) (if you don’t see the link, the site may have logged you in. Log out and you’ll see the link)
Fill out the form
If you have any questions, you can call 888-442-4551, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET.
Good information. I will add that many school VA offices are extremely helpful in figuring everything out. Don’t hesitate to contact the school VA office.
I split my 911 GI Bill Benefits with my two sons, so oldest got 18 months, youngest got 17 months and spouse got one month. That will let me move it around if needed. Oldest used 18 months… youngest will most likely get all remaining 18 months. I have plenty of time to transfer the last hour.
I would echo, but at the top of my lungs, talk to the VA rep at the school. Ask them the best way to play your cards. Rehearse your plan.
If you are splitting then you need to consider how you play your cards. It is like two people playing game of UNO… If I play a yellow reverse, then I can play another card… if I play the yellow 4, then my turn is over. At least consider how the cards are played. Example One Semester out of pocket and one semester GI Bill, will likely create a tax credit. Two GI Bills in a row probably will not. Understand what happens when benefits expire (run out of months)… will you pay OOS or resident rate? Some schools will let you finish the degree at resident. Others will say you have X time to finish at resident rate. Some say it goes straight back to OOS rate. Some schools only require you have the benefit to get resident rate… you don’t even have to use it… but you have to know not to use up all of your benefits until your last semester or you have to pay OOS.
Understand that it is hard to gain an advantage from a scholarship and the GI Bill… that just means the VA pays a lower bill. If you have a partial benefit and you can get a scholarship that gets you below resident rate, then pay up front for that semester before using GI Bill… as the scholarship may not be around at year 3 or 4.
Also know how many days are in a semester… At one school the Fall Semester is 107 and the Spring is 117 days. 107/30= 3.57 months 117/30= 3.9 months. So a normal year is 7.47 months… 7.47+7.47= 14.92 months… When I split the benefit each will get 18 months. 18-14.92=3.06 months… 3.06/3.57= 85.7% of a semester… So 18 months of benefits will get you about 2.43 years of education at this particular college. Make sure you do the math on yours.
For the most part multiple public schools become affordable if they let you finish your degree at resident rates. In fact UIUC, my state’s school, becomes the most expensive option for us, because it has the highest instate tuition that we are looking at compared to other states’ resident cost of attendance.
Scroll down to where your beneficiaries are listed and increase/decrease the number of months available to them
Submit
Look at the top and see if your status changed to “Request Approved”, if yes, follow the instructions in the first post to Apply for Benefits since your child needs a new letter with the correct number of months on it