Veterans get unlimited access to aid for college
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — Military veterans are getting unlimited access to college assistance after President Donald Trump signed into law legislation that is the biggest expansion of college aid for military veterans in a decade.
The Forever GI Act removed a 15-year limit on using the benefits, effective immediately. The measure increases financial assistance for National Guard and Reserve members, building on a 2008 law that guaranteed veterans a fullride scholarship to any in-state, public university, or a similar cash amount to attend private colleges.
Purple Heart recipients forced to leave the service due to injury are eligible for benefits, as are dependents of service members who are killed in the line of duty.
Veterans would get additional
payments for completing science, technology and engineering courses, part of a broad effort to better prepare them for life after active-duty service amid a fast-changing job market. The law also restores benefits if a college closes midsemester, a protection that was added after thousands of veterans were hurt by the collapse of for-profit college giant ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges.
“This is expanding our ability to support our veterans in getting education,” Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin told reporters at a briefing after Mr. Trump signed the measure Wednesday at his New Jersey golf club following two nights at his home at New York’s Trump Tower.
Mr. Trump is staying at the New Jersey club on a working vacation. Journalists were not permitted to see the president sign the bill, as the White House has done for other veterans’ legislation he has turned into law. That includes a measure Mr. Trump signed at the club Saturday to provide nearly $4 billion in emergency funding for a temporary veterans health careprogram.
The measure cleared the Senate by unanimous consent in a voice vote early this month. The House had passed the bipartisan college aid legislation a week earlier.
A wide range of veterans groups supported the education measure. The Veterans of Foreign Wars says hundreds of thousands stand to benefit. The American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans group, hailed the proposal as launching a “new era” for those who served in uniform.
Student Veterans of America says that only about half of the 200,000 service members who leave the military each year go on to enroll in college, while surveys indicate that veterans often outperform peers in the classroom.
The education benefits would take effect for enlistees who begin using their GI Bill money next year.
For a student attending a private university, the additional benefits to members of the Guard and Reserve could mean $2,300 a year more in tuition than they are receiving now, plus a bigger housing allowance.
The expanded educational benefits would be paid for by bringing living stipend payments under the GI Bill down to a similar level as that received by an active-duty member, whose payments were reduced in 2014 by 1 percent a year for five years. Total government spending on the GI Bill is expected to be more than $100 billion over 10 years.
“This bill invests in the proven success of our veterans,” Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said earlier this month. “When our veterans return home, they should have every opportunity available to them to pursue their desired profession and career.”
The panel’s top Democrat, Jon Tester of Montana, has said that the bill “also does right by Guardsmen and Reservists by getting them the education, housing and health care that they have earned. I look forward to working with President Trump to quickly sign our bill into law.”