My Life As A Military Spouse

GI Bill Updates

The Defense Department next week will begin accepting online applications for troops to transfer their education benefits to a spouse or child. The site -- https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/TEB -- won't be operational until Monday, June 29, but department officials have already begun spreading it around to get the word out.

None of the rules of the program have changed; Servicemembers with at least six years who agree another four-year tour will be allowed to share their new GI Bill benefits with a spouse, and those with 10 who sign up for four more years can give their education benefits to a child.

But, Pentagon officials gave us a few new wrinkles that folks looking to transfer their benefits will want to keep an eye on:

-- Troops can only name transfer beneficiaries while on active duty. Servicemembers who qualify can split their benefits between a spouse and several children, and can change how much each receives whenever they want. But once they separate from the military, they won't be able to put new names onto their list of relatives eligible for benefits.

So if a servicemember gets divorced and remarried after leaving the service, or if a father forgot to name one of his children a potential beneficiary while he was on active duty, those individuals won't be eligible for any GI Bill tuition money. The reason is that the transfers are designed to be a retention tool, so the Pentagon isn't overly concerned about life changes after a servicemember leaves the military.

-- Troops need to serve until Aug. 1, 2013, to be eligible. The "four more years" outlined in the measure is not simply a four-year renewal any time this year. Servicemembers must stay in the ranks until August 2013 to be eligible to transfer, and need to agree to that before they can get the proper paperwork for the tuition swap.

For troops who have recently re-upped, it means signing onto another extension. If their current tour takes them to the end of 2011, for example, they'll have to agree to another 20 months before they'll be OKed for the transferability program.

-- If you're not using benefits this fall, it might be worth waiting to sign up. Officials are confident that they'll be able to process the rush of folks applying for benefits next week, but are asking families who aren't using the benefits next semester to wait until mid- or late-July before rushing into the system. When the VA opened its online applications for benefits earlier this year, the system was briefly overwhelmed.

Another detail on the new GI Bill benefits that I just got confirmed by the VA: Under the new rules, active-duty troops who get a waiver from their service to attend school full-time will be able to get full tuition at the college of their choice, regardless of the complicated state caps outlined in the rules.

Officials said that's part of the retention incentive aspects of the new college tuition benefits. Even though only a small section of servicemembers will be able to make such arrangements, the services want to give some of their best and brightest more money to keep them in the ranks.

So, while separated servicemember living in Pennsylvania would be limited to about $8,400 in tuition reimbursement each semester, an active-duty one taking classes in the state could get much more, depending on the cost of the school.

However, a quirk in how Congress wrote the law also treats spouses of active-duty troops exactly the same as those servicemembers. That means wives and husbands of active-duty troops who can transfer their benefits can get a free ride just about anywhere, under the VA's interpretation of the law.

Now, spouses of active-duty troops aren't eligible for the housing stipend or the books stipend, because their servicemember is still receiving a housing allowance from the military. But, depending on the school, that could be a fraction of the cost of tuition.

The provision doesn't carry for children of active-duty troops -- they're always treated "like veterans," according to officials. But, for spouses going to private colleges this fall, if could be a major cut in their anticipated debt.

For a recap of the transfer rules take a look at my previous post, or to get reacquainted with the new GI Bill visit our mailbag from last summer.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:42 AM