<p>I have transferred benefits-36 months- to my child attending college fall 2014. I am interested in hearing others experience with timing of payments and accuracy of the VA. Did you have to put money up front due to delays in VA paying the tuition/fees? Also is yellow ribbon payment made at the same time as tuition and fees?</p>
<p>In the same boat now. Any school I’ve talked to said the BAH payment is typically a month late and the book stipend is more like a reimbursement.</p>
<p>I’m OK with the BAH in arrears and books…although I do not think $1000 will cover books for the year. My biggest concern is if the tuition payment will be paid before school starts. I have been told to sign up for the monthly plan as they are not expecting VA to be timely in their payment.</p>
<p>I wpuld maybe try to submit forms a month early. Best bets are to ask the school’s VA liason, they would know best how their school does it. Some are timely some are not.</p>
<p>Out of the 2 schools I’ve attended, neither have held me responsible for late payments from the VA. I’ve yet to have any problems with the VA/GI Bill outside of late payments due to me registering for classes extremely late. But they’ve already payed my tuition for next semester and I only submitted my registration paperwork a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>The timetable does work in that the housing allowance is paid on the 1st of the month for the month prior (eg. January’s housing allowance is paid February 1st), so your child would be in school for the first month without receiving the housing allowance, but the upside is that your child should receive the allowance the month after s/he finishes school as well.</p>
<p>If the student veteran is proactive and stays in good contact with the campus Vet Center/Rep, then things should go smoothly. In CA, veterans gain priority registration, so I’ve always been able to sign up for classes a few days before everyone else. As soon as I register for my classes, I go to my Vet Center and “Certify” for that upcoming term - the sooner the better. The key to this is me knowing which courses I plan to sign up for ahead of time and not changing it at the last minute. My school has a “fee waive” code on my student account, which pretty much means they know I’m a veteran using VA Education benefits to pay tuition and fees, so I won’t get booted out of my classes for non-payment. I’ve never had an issue with timely payments - tuition or housing allowance.</p>
<p>When looking into schools, you can check to see if they offer priority registration to VA benefit recipients and if they place a similar “fee waive” code on a receipient’s account. That way you’re assured you won’t have to pay up front if the VA payments lag.</p>
<p>Yellow Ribbon is made at the same time as Ch 33 benefits. I highly suggest really looking into YR early as well. Most schools that participate in the program have a limited amount (though few do have “unlimited”) of spots or “seats” to participate in the program. For example, one school I was looking into had only a handful of slots and there was a waiting list. Since it is up to the schools how to allocate the program, this particular school did it on a first-come-first-served basis. This meant that if you got a slot in the program, then you were guaranteed to have the program for as long as you attended that campus or ran out of benefits. The downside to that is that some students on the waitlist may never get selected for the program depending on how many students continued in the program from previous terms and how far down the list they actually were. Again, it’s up to the school to allocate the slots for the program (the VA is specifically trying to stay out of dictating how to tell the schools to do it since it may deter some schools from participating), so it can vary wildly. Some have long wait lists, others guarantee you participation in the program so long as you have remaining benefits.</p>
<p>Hope this is helpful information and best of luck!</p>
<p>Thank you turtlerock -very helpful!</p>