Congress to OK GI Bill fix for private schools - Air Force tuition assistance, military tuition assistance, G.I. Bill, military friendly colleges - Air Force Times

Congress to OK GI Bill fix for private schools

Congress is poised to pass legislation that will protect an estimated 30,000 students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill from having their tuition payments reduced on Aug. 1, but a major veterans’ group is not happy with the plan.

Passage of a tuition protection bill, which could come by week’s end, could end up complicating processing of Post-9/11 GI Bill claims for the fall term, although Veterans Affairs Department officials said they will try to find a way to separate out private-school enrollments in the seven affected states from the rest of the claims to limit any delay.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America fully supports protecting students from the unintended consequences of a revision in how GI Bill reimbursements are determined for private colleges and universities, but the group is concerned that thousands of veterans may still be harmed.

A compromise version of the legislation, set to be passed by the House today and by the Senate later this week, guarantees that students who were enrolled in a private college or university on Jan. 4, 2011, will be protected from any drop in tuition and fee reimbursements.

IAVA wanted protection to apply to anyone enrolled since April 1, 2011, so it would cover a wider number of people, including those who started college in the summer.

The risk to students is that without protection, their tuition and fees could be capped at $17,500 a year, an amount that would result in drops in Post-9/11 GI Bill students in seven states: Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas. Some private schools have taken steps to protect students from losses by expanding use of a tuition waiver initiative, the Yellow Ribbon Program, under which the school and VA match funds to reduce tuition and fee costs.

The Jan. 4 date, first proposed by the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, is the day on which President Obama signed into law the change in the GI Bill formula that created the new tuition cap for private institutions. The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee has favored the April 1 date, and the full House passed a bill that included that date.

With just days before the tuition change takes effect, the House vote is expected to come late Monday on HR 1383, a compromise bill. It is being take up under special rules for noncontroversial bills. This process requires a bill to have support from a two-thirds majority in order to pass — which IAVA hopes to block.

“We adamantly oppose this version of the bill because it leaves out all veterans who started school in the spring 2011 semester,” said Blake Henderson, an IAVA spokesman.

Henderson said the spring semester at most schools started around Jan. 14, which did not give students much time to understand the ramifications of the law signed Jan. 4.

“If this happens, hundreds of deserving veterans across the nation may be adversely affected, face financial distress or have to drop out of college,” Henderson said.