Advice for TLSers giving advice to military vets Forum

[fats provolone]

yea the ability to quit your job is kind of major

[navykev]

A vet that EDs to Chicago or Columbia that gets in -- goes for free -- I don't think a lot of folks understand that when they are advising vets not to ED to a school like Chicago or Columbia.

To be fair, this probably isn't because people don't understand that the GI bill gets you Chicago/Columbia for free, it's because

1) EDing doesn't give you much of a boost at either school regardless,

2) there's a real chance a vet with Chicago/Columbia numbers will outperform and get Harvard,

3) the difference between various T14s with a full ride is negligible enough to tell someone to default to individual circumstances in these kinds of situations. I have no problem telling a 23-year old unmarried kid to suck it up and take X offer because it financially makes the most sense, but I would have a much harder time telling a 35-year old married vet to sell his house and uproot his family from Durham, NC in order to go to Columbia on a full ride over Duke on a full ride.

The reason I made this thread was because I kept seeing the "retake for scholarship" advice for vets.

No offense, but I don't see this happening a lot. You may be able to find a couple threads where people tell fully-eligible vets to retake for scholarship money, but most (read: almost all) of the time, it's people telling vets to retake so they can get into a better school.

Good points for sure

[navykev]

That's crazy, who funds this program? Is the government really okay with shelling over $200k no questions asked?

well they're paying for everyone else's loans so why not

support are troops bro

with yrp the schools contribute quite a bit though, so it's kinda like scholarship $

Yeah GI Bill covers about 20K and YRP covers whatever the school is willing to put up plus a VA match of that amount.

[sodomojo]

Military academy graduates need to serve 8 years before they are fully eligible for post 9-11 GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon Program benefits. ROTC scholarship graduates need to serve 7 years. Thus, most officers applying to graduate school will not qualify. Pilots, OCS graduates, and non-scholarship ROTC graduates are the usual exceptions.

Sorry I'm just curious. Can you elaborate on why pilots are an exception?

[ScottRiqui]

Military academy graduates need to serve 8 years before they are fully eligible for post 9-11 GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon Program benefits. ROTC scholarship graduates need to serve 7 years. Thus, most officers applying to graduate school will not qualify. Pilots, OCS graduates, and non-scholarship ROTC graduates are the usual exceptions.

Sorry I'm just curious. Can you elaborate on why pilots are an exception?

Pilots have a longer Active Duty Service Commitment, so by the time they have their first opportunity to get out (usually around the 9- or 10-year mark), they've already "paid back" the educational benefit (service academy education or ROTC scholarship) and had enough additional time in service to be 100% GI Bill eligible.

[RoosterCogburn]

As a side note, I called the VA to dig deeper into whether or not I owed extra time because of my ROTC partial scholarship, and apparently I don't.

I guess there is a break between someone with full coverage, and someone that entered the program late and pulled down a 2 year scholly.

I am sure the response could be different when it comes time to process everything but I see no reason why the VA would be wrong on this one.

But it is the VA after all...so who knows.

I would be interested to see a compiled list of schools that re-class scholarships. I'll do it unless someone beats me to it in the next few months.

[sodomojo]

As a side note, I called the VA to dig deeper into whether or not I owed extra time because of my ROTC partial scholarship, and apparently I don't.

I guess there is a break between someone with full coverage, and someone that entered the program late and pulled down a 2 year scholly.

I am sure the response could be different when it comes time to process everything but I see no reason why the VA would be wrong on this one.

But it is the VA after all...so who knows.

I would be interested to see a compiled list of schools that re-class scholarships. I'll do it unless someone beats me to it in the next few months.

Extra time as in the service time necessary to acquire full GI Bill? Any way to figure out for certain? I'm skeptical because I can't find anything that differentiates between 4-year, 3-year, and 2-year scholarship ADSOs as exclusions from "qualifying active duty service." But if true, then that's pretty significant.

[RoosterCogburn]

Edit:

Called the VA again. He said that partial scholarships would work like this:

2 Year scholarship- First 24 months do not count towards Post 9/11 GI eligibilty.
So the amount of service time until you start contributing to the post 9/11 is equal to whatever the undergrad scholly was.

This sounds odd to me.

I then called the base education office and she said that you are coded as scholarship regardless of whether its 2 or 4 years and thus must serve 7 years to get 100% GI eligibility.



So for those keeping score thats:
1 VA employee that says I owe no additional service time due to my 2 year scholly in undergrad. Meaning I get GI bill benefits in first 36 months of AD.
1 VA employee that says ADSC needed before contributing to Post 9/11 eligibility is equal to the undergrad scholly.
1 Education office employee that says we are all coded the same regardless of scholarship length.

The education employee sounds correct to me, unfortunately. I asked if I could reimburse the government for my undergrad scholly and she said no. Which blows...but it is what it is.

So who is correct?

[thisisflamelol]

Edit:

Called the VA again. He said that partial scholarships would work like this:

2 Year scholarship- First 24 months do not count towards Post 9/11 GI eligibilty.
So the amount of service time until you start contributing to the post 9/11 is equal to whatever the undergrad scholly was.

This sounds odd to me.

I then called the base education office and she said that you are coded as scholarship regardless of whether its 2 or 4 years and thus must serve 7 years to get 100% GI eligibility.



So for those keeping score thats:
1 VA employee that says I owe no additional service time due to my 2 year scholly in undergrad. Meaning I get GI bill benefits in first 36 months of AD.
1 VA employee that says ADSC needed before contributing to Post 9/11 eligibility is equal to the undergrad scholly.
1 Education office employee that says we are all coded the same regardless of scholarship length.

The education employee sounds correct to me, unfortunately. I asked if I could reimburse the government for my undergrad scholly and she said no. Which blows...but it is what it is.

So who is correct?

Active Duty Exclusions (see DCS G-1 Post 9/11 GI Bill Policy Memorandum dated
10 July 2009, paragraph 6 for all reasons) Some reasons are listed below:
(1) Service Academy: 5 years of non-qualifying service (after commission)
(2) ROTC scholarship (10 USC, 2107(b)): 4 years of non-qualifying service (after
commission)
(3) Loan Repayment Program: 3 years of non-qualifying service (after BASD)
(4) Service terminated due to an erroneous or defective enlistment
(5) Annual training conducted under authority of 10 USC 10147 or 12301(b)
(6) IRR in a non-active duty status

DCS Memo: http://www.armyg1.army.mil/docs/Post-9- ... roved).pdf

Looks like 4-year ADSO is not qualifying service regardless of ROTC scholarship length. It's frustrating how uninformed Army education advisers and VA can be. It's always a good idea to go to the source.

[DiniMae]

That's crazy, who funds this program? Is the government really okay with shelling over $200k no questions asked?

well they're paying for everyone else's loans so why not

support are troops bro

with yrp the schools contribute quite a bit though, so it's kinda like scholarship $

I never said guaranteed federal loans weren't crazy either.

It seems like a pretty sweet deal for vets, but as a taxpayer I might be opposed. I'm not American so I don't fully comprehend the support the troops mentality. I see military service as fairly similar to other government jobs, why doesn't someone who filed documents in city hall get a full ride?

Then again, I'm sure the funding doesn't just apply to someone who spent a year in the army so maybe it's justified.

The fact that you are so truly ignorant of our government and you're applying to be a lawyer here scares the &*#% out of me. Serving 4-30 years in the military is in NO WAY REMOTELY SIMILAR to filing docs at city hall. First of all, city hall isn't at the federal government level and that person's benefits are controlled by their state or county. Moving on, federal employees have MANY opportunities for a free education across multiple Depts and Agencies. And if you bothered to google for five minutes, you'd get enlightened. Please comment on what you know about only. Thank you.

[TheSpanishMain]

That's crazy, who funds this program? Is the government really okay with shelling over $200k no questions asked?

well they're paying for everyone else's loans so why not

support are troops bro

with yrp the schools contribute quite a bit though, so it's kinda like scholarship $

I never said guaranteed federal loans weren't crazy either.

It seems like a pretty sweet deal for vets, but as a taxpayer I might be opposed. I'm not American so I don't fully comprehend the support the troops mentality. I see military service as fairly similar to other government jobs, why doesn't someone who filed documents in city hall get a full ride?

Then again, I'm sure the funding doesn't just apply to someone who spent a year in the army so maybe it's justified.

I guess if you're from some country where the military doesn't actually do anything it might seem comparable to pushing paper at the DMV.

[haus]

I guess if you're from some country where the military doesn't actually do anything it might seem comparable to pushing paper at the DMV.

To be fair... I have visited a DMV or two over the years where the experience may have been improved if it had been relocated to a war zone.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I never said guaranteed federal loans weren't crazy either.

It seems like a pretty sweet deal for vets, but as a taxpayer I might be opposed. I'm not American so I don't fully comprehend the support the troops mentality. I see military service as fairly similar to other government jobs, why doesn't someone who filed documents in city hall get a full ride?

Then again, I'm sure the funding doesn't just apply to someone who spent a year in the army so maybe it's justified.

I guess if you're from some country where the military doesn't actually do anything it might seem comparable to pushing paper at the DMV.

Or if you're from a country with mandatory/universal military service. Really doesn't work that way here at all, though.