New GI Bill Extends Significant New Benefits to Veterans

We're nearing the final implementation date for the Post 9/11 GI Bill, the new program that greatly expands the education benefits available to veterans. Benefits become available to veterans on August 1, 2009.

The basics of the program are these: veterans that meet certain qualifications (see this roundup of qualifications from the VA) are eligible to receive an amount equivalent to the highest state institution's tuition and fees for each state. Click here for a chart that lists the amounts for each state.

This amount can be applied to a veteran's education at any institution, public or private.

In some cases, the amount charged at an institution is higher than the basic benefit, so the Post 9/11 Bill provides for the Yellow Ribbon Program, wherein a participating institution splits the extra amount on a 1-to-1 basis with the VA. more than 740 private non-profit institutions, as well as many public and for-profit institutions, signed up to participate by the June 15 deadline.
Click here for a list of participating institutions from the VA (the VA should publish a final list by June 30, 2009), and click here for a video explaining how yellow ribbon benefits are calculated.

NAICU has a number of resources available on the GI Bill at our special dedicated website. We've also compiled recent news articles of interest.