All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
Hey, welcome to Veterans Radio.
My name is Dale Throneberry, CW-2 helicopter pilot, United States Army, 1969.
Welcome to the program.
We're really excited today.
We're going to be talking about educational benefits for all of you out there that maybe
are transitioning out of the military or even if you've been out of the military for a while.
You're still maybe eligible to utilize those educational benefits.
We've got some experts here that are going to be talking about that.
And I'm going to give out the phone number here just in case.
If you want to ask a question of our guest, the number is 734-822-7232.
734-822-1600.
Before we get into that, I did have one quick little announcement I wanted to make.
And that's one of our board members here for Veterans Radio America.
Dad is not doing well and he needs blood.
And we need to get people out there to help him out.
This is for Joe Melcher.
He's an Air Force veteran and he needs blood and platelets, especially B positive.
And so I want you to go right, wait an hour and then go to RedCross.org, set an appointment,
see if you can help out there.
He really, I think it'd be really beneficial for all of us.
And for you, it always feels good.
Plus they give you cookies when you donate blood.
So go ahead.
All right.
That's the unofficial business.
All right.
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Thank you in advance.
And now, I'm going to introduce the folks going to be on our show.
So we're kind of doing something a little bit different today.
We are going to be talking, as I mentioned, about educational benefits for veterans.
And I've got a co-host today.
And my co-host today is our board member from the Veterans Radio America.
That is Lydia Pinkham.
And Lydia is a Coast Guard veteran.
She was a petty officer, second class.
And Lydia, welcome to On the Air.
Thanks, Dale.
Happy to be here.
As Dale said, I was a petty officer in the Coast Guard, did everything from machinery
work on board engineer to search and rescue and law enforcement, and after I got out,
I went straight back to school and used my education benefits right away at the University
of Michigan and then continued on to grad school at the University of Colorado.
So a lot of my experience with education benefits come from using them myself and asking a lot
of questions and really pestering the people at my certifying office.
But now I serve as an academic advisor for not military students, but I do have a lot
of military students in my position.
So I'm in the university circle.
Can usually help point students in the right direction.
But since I live in that world, this is a kind of an important subject to me.
I have a lot of students that are using these benefits right now.
Also with us today, joining us from Southeast Michigan as well, we have Mike Wise, who was
a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, served as an officer for more than 20 years, specializing
in command and leadership, communications, project management, really, really diverse
background and retired from the military as a Lieutenant Colonel after serving as a professor
of military science and leadership at Eastern Michigan University.
And Mike currently serves as the assistant director of military and veteran services
at Eastern Michigan and works as the school's certifying official.
So I think we've got a good background of information and we're hoping to, as most of
our listeners are aware, we have a monthly benefits hour and we usually talk about a
lot of health benefits, but we'd like to make a recurring episode talking just about education
benefits because a younger generation of vets is getting out and using these benefits and
it's pretty important.
So we can get started.
I have some questions if we're ready to move on.
Mike, do you have anything else you want to say?
Now, I just wanted to thank you for that introduction.
I've been at Eastern now for about 11 years.
It's hard to believe that time flies as a civilian.
So it's been 11 years as a civilian.
So I'm really, really happy to have this position.
It's been a great opportunity in a kind of military retirement type gig.
I get to deal with a lot of veterans.
I'm talking 300 some per semester and it's quite a job, but it's also a pretty rewarding.
So I'm open to any questions you have about anything that has to do with the GI bill.
And so I'm open and I'm ready to go.
All right.
Sounds good.
And Dale, if you let us know if any calls come in, we'll take those.
But in the meantime, I got some good places to start talking to Mike.
So let me give out that phone number one more time.
Number 734-822-1600.
734-822-1600.
Go.
All right.
So I think it makes sense to start kind of from the beginning.
Say we have a veteran who's either getting out or has been out for a while and they're
interested in going back to school, but they have no idea what sort of benefits they've
got.
If they have the post 9-11, if they have the Montgomery, if they paid in the Montgomery
GI bill, where should that person go as their first stop to even see how many months of
benefits they have or what chapter benefits they have?
What's the best resource?
There's two things and I hate to say it because you hate to say it's on the website, but that's
the way the VA is today.
The best place to start because the VA is the absolute determiner, they determine eligibility
benefits for education.
So if someone wants to find out what benefits they have, they have to visit va.gov and they
have to apply.
That is the number one way to do it.
The other way that is secondary, which isn't the most pleasant, is to call into the GI
bill hotline, which is 888-GI-BILL-1.
I think it's 888-442-GI-BILL-1.
That's the GI bill hotline.
So that's the best way to figure out if you're eligible for benefits.
That includes dependents.
So I get a lot of students who have given their GI bill, on the Post-911 GI bill, for
example, a lot of veterans have given that benefit to their children or to their spouses.
And so what people sometimes understand is that person who's been given that benefit
has to apply for that benefit also.
It's not just automatic.
They have to actually go up to the VA and pull that benefit down.
And it becomes theirs legally.
So it's no longer the service member's bill.
I'm talking specifically about the Post-911 GI bill.
And so any questions on that one?
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess.
I'm sorry.
But both questions, hypothetically, if a person, while their active duty, gives part
of their GI bill to a dependent and then that dependent no longer needs it, is it possible
to get that benefit back to a full 100% for the original person?
Yes.
A few years ago, they changed the name of this whole business to, I believe it was the
forever GI bill.
And then a little bit later, it kind of became the Henry Comery GI bill.
So it gets a little confusing because it just seems like different administrations change
the names of these things.
But they're all pretty much the same thing.
So like I said, if a veteran wants to use their GI bill, they're on active duty and
they're trying to figure out what they want to do with their GI.
They can, as long as they transfer that benefit to a dependent before they leave active duty,
they can go back in any time and they can change the delegation of that beneficiary.
And the one thing to keep in mind is that normally the spouse and the service member
will never lose that benefit.
So as long as the veteran delegated that benefit to the spouse prior to leaving active duty
or the child, they can go back in and move those months around any time they want to.
And we run into that a lot.
Sometimes it'll be at the detriment of the student because the service member will split
up the GI bill amongst three kids.
Everybody gets 12 months.
And then all of a sudden one student is running out of benefits, so dad's got to go in or
mom's got to go in and reallocate a few months here and there.
So it does take a little bit of work on the front end from the veteran prior to leaving
active duty.
Okay.
Yep.
All right.
Dale, you also had a question.
I am naive about this because when I used the GI bill 100 years ago, I mean it didn't
pay for everything, but it did pay for a graduate degree and so forth, which I'm obviously
very grateful for.
Is there a, under the newest version of the GI bill, is this a set amount that's there
or is it that can be divided up because you're talking about being able to give it to dependence,
which is really an awesome thing.
I wasn't even aware that you could do that.
So that's a thing, Dale.
That's a new GI bill that came out in 2009, eight years after, eight years after 9-11.
And that's when they, that's when they use the, basically what I remember is they were
using the post 9-11 GI bill and allowing you to transfer it to your, to your dependents
because it was kind of a retention tool for Army personnel because people were getting
out after all these deployments are sick of it.
Being deployed for six years, seven years, eight years.
And so a lot of people were getting out and they didn't really talk about it much, but
I kind of watched as it developed.
And that's where they started allowing the service member to give that benefit to the
dependent for three more years of service.
It's along those lines.
So the post 9-11 GI bill is different than what you used, which was probably called the
chapter 30 active duty Montgomery, there's five GI bills.
So they're all a little bit different.
And I can talk about those all day or we can stick with just two of them because there's
two that are kind of confused.
I know that in Lydia's questions, she's talking about VR and E and post 9-11, which I think
is where we should probably focus our efforts today.
Because there's other, there's other GI bills for dependents and National Guard and Reserves
that are, that were belong to the VA, but they get a little bit, they get a little bit
confusing.
So I want to, I think if we stick to just those main two that you're asking about, I
think we'll be good for today.
But of course it's open to quite, you're open, you're welcome to ask me any questions about
anything, but those are the two that most often get confused.
Yeah, I think that's a great segue.
If we, if we're ready to move on, I think a basic explanation of the difference between
the post 9-11 GI bill and the, what's, what's called VR and E, the vocational, I believe
chapter 20, chapter 31 and chapter 33 are those two.
Could you explain, explain the difference between those two?
Yeah.
The way I understand it, and I certify, you know, every student that comes through Eastern
Michigan University, the, the one distinction that's very important to keep in mind, although
it's treated like a GI bill, is the VR and E program, which is a VA program, you have
to be 10% disabled, even qualified for it.
I'm talking service connected.
And everyone understands what service connection means, I think, on this net.
That means you are injured in, in the service and your percentage of your claim must be
10%.
And it's got to be service connected.
So if you, if you are, if you do have that, that designation, then you qualify for VR
and E, it's an edge, it's not an education benefit.
It's not, it's not considered an educational benefit.
It's considered an employment benefit.
So for example, a student who enters the VR and E program is not there to actually go
to college per se, you can go to college, that's one way to do it.
But you can also go to barber school.
You can go to bartender school.
You can go to motorcycle repair school.
It depends on whether or not those businesses or those trade schools have applied to actually
accept the GI bill.
So let's say somebody wants to go to barber college instead of a four year university,
then that barber college has to have been approved to accept the VA's GI bill process.
Okay.
But then they can use, a student can use the, the VR and E benefit for that.
I have about 70 or 80 VR and E students at Eastern Michigan.
And they all have a VR and E counselor who's part of, is a social worker usually, that's
a part of the VA system.
And those, those counselors are located all over the United States.
Our students primarily have their counselors from Michigan.
There's a few from Ohio.
I've got a couple from Wisconsin have, I actually have one from North Carolina, I believe.
So we, we communicate with the social work folks who are, you know, the counselors for
the disabled veterans who have been accepted into the VR and E program.
Not everybody's accepted into the VR and E program.
You know, some students already have bachelor's degrees.
And the intent of the VR and E program is to find them suitable employment following
active duty service.
And you know, like I said, if they're, if they have a service connected disability that
makes them even more eligible or more likely to be selected to be in this program.
Okay.
What questions do you have on that?
Is, I mean, I guess if a student is interested in pursuing, say they have the, at least 10%
service connected disability.
Is there a first person that they should reach out to to find out to start the process of
applying to the VR and E program?
Who's the best contact for them to reach out to?
Again it's VA.gov.
If you're out there, if you're out there and you're not going to, let's say, I'll just
give our, I'll give Eastern Michigan a plug in U of M and Washington Community College
also have an asset from the VA.
This is a social worker who's actually assigned three or four schools normally in an area.
So I have, I have one social worker who's on campus comes once a week.
They can always reach out to him.
And if they're going to U of M or they're going to Washington, all they can find them.
His name is John Cagini.
And we can certainly post his information anywhere, you know, if you want it later.
But he, he comes and he can answer.
He can, he's the guy that can be on site once a week to answer questions.
But when it comes to actually applying for the VR and E program is just like the post
911, you have to go to VA.gov.
And you have to find the VR and E application.
And that's where you, that's where you submit it.
They kind of streamlined all that stuff on the VA.gov website now.
So you just have to go.
They have to go out to the website and there's, you know, the VA is trying to get away from
paper applications and things like that.
So they put it all on VA.gov.
I would tell you that it's, it's pretty robust now and it's pretty easy to find.
Got a lot of big buttons on there with big text letters and pictures, which makes it
nice and easy to navigate.
So, but yeah, definitely two distinctions between the VR and E program and the post 911
GI bill.
They're, they're two separate things.
Post 911 is an educational benefit and the VR and E program is a employment benefit.
It's an employment seeking program.
Whereas they all are, they're all, they're all employment seeking, but I mean, that's
in the end, that's what we want as a job, right?
The VR and E program is specifically designed for that social worker and that student to
get through school or get through the training and find a job immediately.
That's the VR and E.
Mike, can you tell us what some of these benefits are?
I mean, the idea, you know, from what I've heard is in addition to paying tuition, there's
also a housing allowance and there's some other things that are, that are included with
these benefits these days.
Sure.
The post 911 and the VR and E program specifically have, well, let me just start with the post
911.
Post 911, depending on the, the soldier's time and service can range from 40% to 100%,
which means you have to serve at least three years on active duty to get the 100% level,
which is, you know, that's, that's the GI bill, the post 911 that's going to pay for
100% of your tuition and fees, a housing allowance and a, and a $1,000 a year book stipend.
That's the 100% rate.
So students that are at the 50% rate, they haven't served quite long enough on active
duty, then the VA is going to get the 50% rate would pay half of their, their tuition
and fees and would give them half of the housing allowance that's authorized for whatever
zip code their university is in, and it would be half of the $1,000 book stipend.
So it'd be $500 versus $1,000.
So and it's very nice because in the Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti area, the housing allowance
is pretty good.
It's about $2,300 a month.
And so that's, you know, of course, that's not a lot to live on, but it certainly eases
the stress of having to have a full time job while you're trying to go to school.
So so post again, just to summarize that the post 911 pays for tuition and fees, pays
a housing allowance and it pays a monthly or a, I shouldn't say monthly, a book stipend,
which usually is paid twice per year, the book stipend, like in the two main semesters.
On the Vogue, the VR&E program, which stands for Veterans Readiness and Employment, I should
have said that earlier.
They get a book stipend, they get the VA pays for their books.
So their tuition and fees is 100% covered and at a four year university, for example,
their books and supplies are completely paid for by the VA.
And their housing allowance is a little bit less and less they still have some post 911
GI bill left and then they get the same rate that the rest of the post 911 folks get.
So they put they all three of them cover down on pretty much everything they need for school.
Does that help answer that question, Bill?
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's such a good deal for these, you know, for these veterans
that are coming out of their service these days.
And when you say it pays 100%, so that means that whether you're going to, you know, a
lower cost college or a higher cost college, or is there a limit on that?
There is a limit, there is a limit, and I'm not I'm not really not 100% perfect on this
yet.
But what I do know, what I do understand is that the post 911 GI Bill has a cap per year.
And so let's say, for example, someone got admitted and accepted to, let's say, Stanford.
Good tuition and fees are off the charts.
Right.
Okay.
So the so the VA has this program called the yellow ribbon program, you probably heard
of that.
It gets confused very often.
A lot of folks think it's an extra benefit.
But the yellow ribbon program is essentially an agreement between the university and the
VA.
Any particular university that accepts the GI Bill.
It's an agreement where the VA pays half of the of the overage.
So there's a there's a limit.
There is a limit.
I think it's 26,000 a year, 29,000 years, something along those lines for a student
to use.
So if those tuition and fee amounts are above and beyond, you know, the 29,000 a year figure,
and the yellow ribbon program comes into play to help offset that over that overage of tuition
that is not, you know, over 29,000 a year.
And so again, the university pitches in 50% and the VA pitches in the other 50%.
That's kind of the agreement of the yellow ribbon program.
So for example, at Eastern Michigan, to answer your question, even further Dale, we don't
accept our students don't exceed that 29,000.
And so we don't even though we're a yellow ribbon school on paper, we don't actually
participate in the yellow ribbon program.
That's kind of saved for some of the more Ivy League type schools and maybe even University
of Michigan where the tuition is a little bit higher.
Yeah, if I recall, University of Michigan was a had the yellow ribbon program and that
was when I started there, I received a financial aid offer that included assistance from the
yellow ribbon program or I could use solely only use my GI bill benefits.
So there's sometimes at the beginning of the semester, a couple of those options that
students have to weigh.
And the best advice is to talk to one of the financial aid people or in the veteran services
office and see which one of those offers is better to take because for me personally,
the yellow ribbon financial aid package that side of it would not have come with a monthly
housing allowance whereas using my GI bill did come with a housing allowance and that
was part of the decision and it may have changed over the years, but they're the best people
to explain that when it comes through.
Yeah, that's pretty, yeah, you're very accurate on that Lydia, it's right on.
Yeah.
All right, how we look at Dale.
Now is this going to say we're going to take a break and about 10 seconds, I think, so
I can warn Derek of that.
We're talking with Lydia Pinkham and with Mike Wise on educational benefits.
So anybody out there who would like to know more about what benefits are available to
the veterans, today's veterans, you can give us a call here at 734-822-1600.
We're going to go to a break with our Medal of Honor segment when we come back, we'll answer
more questions and I've got a few.
You're listening to Veterans Radio and we will be right back.
The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in combat given a member of the Armed
Forces of the United States.
There have been over 3,400 recipients of the nation's highest award.
This is one of them.
Captain Lewis Millett was wounded by grenade fragments but refused evacuation.
Details after this.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
There are experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
While personally leading his company in an attack against a strongly held Korean position,
Millett noted that the first platoon was pinned down by small arms, automatic, and anti-tank
fire.
Millett ordered the third platoon forward, placed himself at the head of the two platoons,
and with fixed bayonet led the assault up the fire-swept hill.
In the fierce charge, he bayoneted two enemy soldiers and boldly continued on throwing
grenades, clubbing and bayonetting the enemy while urging his men forward by shouting encouragement.
Despite vicious opposing fire, the whirlwind hand-to-hand assault carried to the crest
of the hill.
His leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile
position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild
disorder.
During this fierce onslaught, Millett was wounded by grenade fragments but refused evacuation
until the objective was taken and firmly secured.
The
veteranscrisisline.net, a message from the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
And we're back here on Veterans Radio and we're talking all about educational benefits
for veterans.
So I'm going to turn it back over to Lydia Pinkham.
All right.
Thanks, Dale.
So we talked a little bit about the differences between the Post-911 GI Bill and the VR&E version
of the benefits.
So while we're on that thread talking about some of these finances and what's covered,
I do have a question about things like fees that students pay.
So at most public universities, students start out, they enroll, they generate a tuition
bill, but there are also a lot of mandatory student fees like the rec center at the University
of Colorado.
We have a fee for using the bike path and bike repair stations.
There's the student government fee, a lot of these fees that accrue that are anywhere
from 70 cents to $30.
So usually a couple hundred bucks worth of student fees.
And then some universities that have the availability of providing medical insurance to their students
will also charge a health insurance fee with a premium per semester.
So Mike, would you be able to talk a little bit about what sorts of fees are covered by
these benefits and what sorts of fees students might expect to pay out of pocket?
I can specifically talk to Eastern more than anything, but I don't believe that there's
a health insurance benefit payment.
That's not something that I've ever heard of.
However, when you talk about fees, and when I say tuition and fees, I'm talking about
online fees, I'm talking about bookstore fees for online books, things like that that come
along.
Most of the 11 GI Bill students, I personally at Eastern and myself, I certify those because
they're the same fees that any student would get.
And if the GI Bill is paying for that tuition and those fees, then those are covered by
the GI Bill.
As long as they're specifically part of that curriculum.
And registration fees are authorized.
At Eastern, they're non-refundable, so if a student drops all their classes, they still
got to have the 50 bucks that's going to remain on their account.
But that's apples and oranges.
But the gym, that's covered.
We cover it.
Just because it's part of their college experience.
We want our veterans to have the opportunity to use the gym and stay in shape as a part
of their curriculum and part of their journey through college.
So we do cover that fee.
Okay.
You might not know the answer to this one, too, but I know some universities, like Michigan,
for instance, some students pay for a parking pass.
If they're commuters and they don't live on campus, is there any chance of having something
like a parking pass covered as well?
VRE, Veterans Readiness and Employment, those students at Eastern, for example, have to
pay for their own parking.
Eastern Michigan's parking is privatized, which I think a lot of universities are now.
And they don't participate in the VA's invoicing process.
So the student has to pay for that benefit out of pocket and then request reimbursement
from their social worker or their VRE counselor.
Now post-911 students, they're not authorized parking.
And they have to purchase their parking pass with their book stipend or whatever, maybe
some of their housing allowance.
But it is kind of a crappy deal.
Parking's always at a premium on probably every university.
Parking is the one thing that keeps everybody arguing.
But it is kind of a challenge sometimes, but it's not covered.
And I'd actually just say it's not covered at Eastern Michigan.
Okay.
Dale?
No, I was just thinking you mentioned that they wouldn't pay it directly, but they might
get reimbursed.
Only VRE, only Veterans Readiness and Employment has that ability.
The post-911 students have to use their stipends to purchase their own parking pass.
And that's it.
And like I said, Dale, that's kind of unique to Eastern.
Right.
So the VRE, that has replaced the post-911 GI Bill, is that correct?
No.
They're separate?
Yeah, VRE is a completely separate program.
Okay.
It is handled like the GI Bill in terms of the way it's certified.
But the pot of money that the tuition and fees comes out of, the housing allowance that
comes out of it, those are all a different pot of money than the post-911.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's, so like I said, VRE is an employment program to find a veteran suitable employment
following service.
Whereas the post-911 GI Bill is an education benefit that can be transferred to a dependent.
And it's mainly, mainly used for higher education at a four-year university.
Not always, but sometimes, yeah.
You can use it.
My question is this.
So the veteran that's getting out of service and wants to go to motorcycle repair school,
do they get the same type of benefits?
Yes, but it's...
Do they get the same amount of housing than everything else?
Yep, they do.
The difference between some of those trades and a four-year university or a community
college, the difference is that they go by clock hours.
And so they're not measured again, they're not measured in credit hours like a university,
but they're measured in clock hours.
And so there's a different calculus for someone using a VR and E or even the post-911 at a
trade school.
Okay.
All right.
So Mike, you've mentioned a couple of times this process of certifying and your position
at Eastern Michigan University.
For students that are joining a university's program, they're going to hear this title,
certifying official quite a lot.
Can you explain what that entails and what that person is able to do and who that person
serves as for the students?
Okay.
Yep, sure.
So first off, I'd like to say the school certifying official, I've been a school certifying official
now for 11 years.
That's my primary function as the director of military and veteran services.
It's school certifying official.
There's only, so at a university, the school certifying official, it's an additional duty
in some places like, I know at U of M, the school certifying official is in either the
financial aid office or the registrar's office.
It's like an additional duty.
Whereas at Eastern, it's my primary duty.
And I'm the one who's hired to do that, plus all the other stuff that goes on in a veteran
center.
But the school certifying official is the person who sends your tuition and fees or
your numbers of credit hours or your clock hours to the VA.
You're the person on the ground in the trench who reports to the VA, you're a trusted agent,
that you're going to report your students credit hours, tuition and fees accurately and precisely
to the VA.
And that's what we do on the ground.
From post-911 to VR&E to all the other GI bill benefits that are out there.
Okay, awesome.
Thank you.
Yep.
All right.
We had one kind of specific question that was submitted through our social media channels
through Instagram.
This question is about an email that some students received a few months ago.
I think it was a few months ago now.
And a communication from the VA saying that they would receive an additional 12 months
of benefits if they had paid into the Montgomery GI bill, I believe was the phrasing.
Are you aware of an email to that effect of an additional 12 months?
So going from 36 months to 48 months and how would students know?
Yes, that's a very...
That was something pertaining to them.
I saw that message, Lydia, and got a few questions about it.
I have questions about it myself because the message is not really clear.
It does say that if you have two different times of service that you can still have these
two different GI bills, what we're talking about is the one Dale used.
It was called the Montgomery GI bill, Chapter 30.
You paid into it while you were serving, and then you used it to go to school once you
left the service.
Or you could use it while you were in the service too.
That's why it was called the active duty bill.
The issue is that it's a little bit vague.
So the answer that I always give the student is call the VA.
The reason I say that is because I don't want to give you bad information about what benefits
you have and don't have.
That determination is done by the VA.
And so if a student has questions about this particular message or this new rule, I tell
them to call the VA the GI bill hotline and talk to an agent because they're going to
be able to see all of their benefits clearly and easily.
I don't have visibility of what GI bill benefits students have other than a date.
It's like a month in a day thing, which isn't always accurate.
In the certifying system that I use, it'll give me a little indication how many benefits
are remaining for this particular student.
However, it's limited.
I can't see everything.
And so that's why I turn them around to the GI bill hotline, although I hate to do it.
I like to be able to answer questions on the ground here, but there's just some information
that the student's just going to have to contact the VA.
They can do it also through an online chat portal called askva.gov.
But then I always, most of the time, I just tell them to call and talk to an agent, a
live agent.
Okay.
That's a good place to start.
Yeah, it's a good place to start.
And I think that's a recurring theme here is that a lot of times the VA, because they
can see all the benefits that a particular person has is the best first stop, checking
with the portal online or talking to a live agent is the good first step for someone to
take.
Exactly.
And then they know they're talking to the VA and not some lowly certifying school official
that's hanging out at a university who's trying to help.
But I'm not from the government anymore.
Not anymore.
Okay.
One other question that we had received was asking about how final semesters work.
So I know we talked a lot about the beginning, how students get started.
A lot of students feel like they're kind of in a cruising zone for the couple years that
they're using.
They get into the routine of submitting the same forms at the beginning of each semester.
But then they start getting closer to graduation.
I know a lot of students have questions about how the last semester can work.
So for example, if a student only has one or two months of their benefits remaining,
but the semester is four months long and it's their final semester, so they're enrolled
in at least one class that they need to graduate.
How does that final semester work for a student when they don't have enough to make it through
the whole semester?
That's a great question.
It happens a lot.
I have kind of a vague answer.
And I hate to say vague, however, there have been times when a student runs out of benefits
primarily with students like the dependents who got transferred to entitlement from a
veteran.
They'll run out of benefits in the middle of the semester and the VA will not send
all of the tuition and fee money.
They'll prorate it.
In some other cases, I've had where I advise the student to contact the VA prior to that
semester starting to ask that very same question that you asked.
And many times, and I'm not saying that this is the way it always is.
This is the way it's been sometimes, is that the education, the education that I've
had with the student, the education department will extend those benefits for entire semester
to the end of the semester to cover it.
But the student has to call in advance and talk about that process and ask for that extension.
I've heard that happen before.
And then in other cases, they won't send it.
They'll just cut it off and prorate it for a particular time of the, you know, however,
whatever their benefit runs out during that semester.
So like I said, it's kind of a vague gray area.
Okay.
Roundout.
Now, there's another thing called roundout.
And that's where, let's say, for example, you're taking, you have, you've taken all your
program requirements.
And in the last semester of your school, right before you graduate, you only need two classes
to graduate.
But oh, by the way, you want that housing allowance and you have to be full time to get
that housing allowance, which is, you know, in Arbor and Ypsilani, it's 2,200 bucks or
2,300 roughly.
And so if you're not full time, you don't get that whole housing allowance.
It gets, you know, it gets, it gets prorated.
So the roundout rule is if you're in your last semester of your program, you can take
classes that are aligned with your major that bring you to full time so that you can have
that, so that you can have, still have that full housing allowance while you're going
to school your last semester.
Okay.
And that's called the roundout.
Yeah.
I think the roundout is the, that's the verbiage I've heard multiple times from students.
I'm glad you, I'm glad you brought that term up.
Stan?
Sounds like you take a lot of electives that last semester.
Oh yeah.
Underwater basket weaving and archery.
My last semester at U of M, I took a class called Woody Plants where we went on hikes
and we memorized identifying characteristics of trees and it was amazing.
So that's what you do.
A broadening experience.
Yep.
All right.
Awesome.
So I think, I mean that was, that was a really good answer for some of our submitted questions
that we received online through social media which anyone who's listening when we have
these programs in the future submitting questions either through our Instagram or Facebook messages
is a great way if you don't want to call into the show, I can make sure that some of those
questions get on air.
So that's something that we'll try to keep doing in the future.
I have one more question and this is kind of, this isn't about the end of school but
sometimes this happens for students while they're in between fall and spring semesters
but over the summer term, a lot of universities instead of full time being defined as 12 credits,
they define full time as six credits or a student is only taking one class over the
summer so they're only going to be at three credits.
Can you talk just a little bit of general information about how benefits might be used
over the summer and if it's worth it?
I guess the question students have sometimes if it's worth it to use to tap into their
GI bill over the summer just for one class.
Yeah, we have it every year.
We have several of our students take summer classes and the way I describe it to them
is at Eastern for example, we have two main summer term parts called term parts.
The entire summer semester is just like a fall and winter semester.
However, the fall and winter aren't broken up into term parts.
And so I look at the first half of summer and I look at it like the second half of
summer and we try to get students to take undergraduate students to get to the full
12 hours.
They have to take six in the first half of summer and six in the second half of summer.
Five students, their full time is eight so they have to take essentially two classes
in the first part of summer and two in the second half.
So I usually try to draw a bar graph to show students visually how those two semesters
collide and how they keep them getting that full time housing allowance.
And we help students pick those classes a lot.
My friend and colleague at the university, we sit down with those students and really
make sure that they get that full time stipend and that they navigate between online and
resident classes because there is a difference between the amount of housing allowance if
you're all online versus resident, there's a difference.
And so we try to make sure that they take those summer classes.
We try to get them at least one resident each term part.
But to answer your question, it's absolutely awesome to use your benefits over the summer.
And it keeps that housing allowance going and it keeps your, you know, you're on track
to graduate a little bit earlier.
One of my colleague always tries to get the students to save their electives until summer
because a lot of their major classes aren't offered in the summer.
So they want to try to, let's save those gen eds like English 100 or writing 102 or 201,
save those for the summer because that's, those are more widely offered.
Okay.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah, summer was a, that was a tough question for me to figure out when I was at University
of Michigan.
So I think the, again, with the recurring themes that we have going during this hour
is talk to your advisor and your certifying official at the school, make sure that you're
adhering to the university standards for what's considered full-time or what you're supposed
to be taking and see how that can be used in tandem with your benefits to get you the
best possible return.
So what it sounds like.
And summer is the, summer is the absolute worst semester to certify as a school certifying
official.
There's so many changes and drop dates and I mean, it just makes it, makes it very challenging
because you have to pay really close attention in the summer.
Okay.
That's good to know too.
All right.
Well, we had one last question that was submitted that I think, Mike and I can both try to answer
this one with a short tip, but the question was about transitioning from the military
life to the student life and what resources students have to help them with that transition.
So specifically thinking, you know, we, a lot of members in the military go from having
a really exciting job or doing something every day that they feel like they're giving back
to the community, they're serving a purpose.
And then all of a sudden you're sending an electric call with 200 other students learning
about biology 101.
And for a lot of military members, that transition to student life is really tough.
And another part of that is being an older student on campus and a lot of us that leave
the military and go back to school, we're in our mid to late twenties surrounded by students
who are much younger and it's a totally different environment.
And the question was about resources on campus that students have, that veteran students
have to help them with this transition to student life.
So I'll give my 30 second answer and then Mike can give his 30 second answer.
Mine is to know about your, your student groups and resources.
Many of these student veteran organization and the peer advising for veterans and education
offices, those two places for me are what changed my experience at University of Michigan.
But most schools that have a decent size veteran population have a student group of some sort
that is for veteran students.
And those guys, for example, helped me pass calculus and it was life changing.
But having a community of people and reaching out and knowing what your resources were was
really important for me.
Mike, do you have any, any alibis to that for a last word?
Yeah, well Eastern Michigan put all their money where their mouth is and they opened
up a, a, a veteran center where veterans can come and hang out in our lounge and get a
computer lab.
We got snacks and things like that.
I find that having that welcome USO flavor environment, new veterans command, we sit
down and talk.
We don't even talk about school sometimes.
We just talk about where you're from, you know, what'd you do?
Why are you here?
Break the ice and then start talking business.
Start getting into the checklist.
Did you do this?
Did you do that?
Did you, have you registered for classes?
Do you need help finding your classrooms?
Do you know where?
So we help them do those, those initial walk around campus things because it, it just makes
them feel comfortable and it makes them feel safe and they, you know, they feel like they're
welcome.
You know, a lot of times I think if they were to go to a big campus and there's no, there's
no lounge or there's no, there's no liaison, you know, whose military has a military mindset.
Then they kind of get lost and maybe frustrated.
We try to eliminate that, that whole thing.
It's not about a party.
It's about sitting down, caring about people and to, and showing them how to get there,
you know, showing them how to, to get through school, helping them register for classes,
making sure that, you know, we send out targeted emails with, with, with regard to those important
things that are coming out of the registrar's office that they're not going to totally understand.
We put it in veteran, we put it in military language so they can understand it and, and
we put a precedence on it so they understand, you know, how you're at training and they
stopped their foot three times, you know, remember that point when they stopped their
foot.
I got to jump in here, Mike.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
We're coming up to the end of our program today.
Lydia, thank you very much for putting this educational program together.
Mike Weiss from Eastern Michigan University.
If you have any questions, I'm sure that, you know, if you want to contact us, we'll
point you in the right direction here on Veterans Radio.
So I appreciate both of you and the effort that you put into this.
Again, I want to remind people to donate blood, you know, go over there and mention Joe Meltzer's
name wherever you are, Air Force Veteran.
Go to RedCross.org and schedule an appointment to help him out.
We're going out on the God bless America again, our favorite tune, of course, and I want to
thank everybody for listening today and I'm getting ready for my 10 second countdown.
I can see he's getting all fired up here.
So thank you very much for listening to Veterans Radio.
We'll be back again next week until then.
You are dismissed.
God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her and guide her through the night
with a light from above, from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans, white with
foam.
God bless America, my home sweet home.