I’ve been looking into the military for a while now to pay for all of my tuition.
I have a few questions:
I want a way so that I don’t have to pay loans at all and come off with zero debt.
My husband is active duty. He completed his degree while on active duty and maintained a 4.0 gpa, while working 60-90 hours a week around his classes. It’s hard but doable. Most active military go to school either on base (most large bases have colleges on base) or online, but it’s not required. If you enter the reserves you will eventually earn the GI bill, but not right away. In order for my husband to have tuition assistance (where the military pays up front for classes as you take them), he had to be active duty with a certain amount of time on his contract and get permission from the officer in charge. That all said, most people serve on active duty and then get out and go to college with their GI Bill.
Wow. Respect to your husband on that. As for: “That all said, most people serve on active duty and then get out and go to college with their GI Bill”. I thought the GI Bill expired after you leave active duty? And also, wouldn’t this require a gap year?
The GI Bill never expires now- it’s actually now called the forever GI Bill, I believe. As for using it, you’re not eligible for the full benefit until you’ve served three years on active duty. If you use it at that time and are still on active duty you’re not eligible to get the housing stipend. Most people who are entering the military to get the education benefit go in after high school, serve one contract without going to school, exit the military service under honorable conditions at the end of that contract, and then use their GI Bill to attend college full time. They take those interim years off of school altogether.
GI BIll college funding may be used by veterans of US military service: https://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/post911_gibill.asp
Other ways doing military service and college are the military service academies and ROTC (but both the academies and ROTC scholarships are highly competitive). These lead to being commissioned as an officer.
How about an ROTC scholarship where you’re required to serve 4 years AFTER you graduate? Not sure how hard they are to get, but when were on a campus visit a recruiter was talking to DS about it.
The reserve component GI Bill requires six years is reserve contractual service and is a MUCH smaller benefit- it would not cover schooling at all, really, not even community college (current benefit is less than $400 a month for 3 years, I think).
Also, NJ publics are tuition-free for NJ National Guard and IL publics are tuition-free for IL National Guard after 1Y of service.