Delays continue for Post-9/11 GI Bill students

By Rick Maze - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday Jan 19, 2010 12:43:10 EST

New data from the Veterans Affairs Department suggest further patience may be required of students and schools awaiting Post-9/11 GI Bill payments for the spring semester.VA has been averaging 47 days to process GI Bill payments from the day an institution certifies a student’s enrollment.While VA officials hope having a more experienced group of people processing claims will speed payments, it will take major improvement to guarantee that students won’t have to wait more than a month before receiving living stipends and book allowances.More than 380,000 students — veterans, current service members and eligible family members — applied for certificates of eligibility for the new benefits program last year, according to a VA report provided to veterans service organizations.Only about 333,000 received certificates, an indication that some people who applied have not been certified as having earned the benefits.Not everyone who was certified ended up enrolling in classes; VA officials report 183,647 students enrolled.It is unclear whether everyone who enrolled for the fall term has been paid. Veterans groups report a handful of cases of tuition payments to schools not being made until January, and cases in which schools threatened to deny enrollment for the spring term unless tuition was paid.“Though VA believes they are caught up with fall payments, we continue to hear from veterans who haven’t received anything,” said Ryan Galluci of AmVets. “Whether this has to do with the schools or VA is difficult to tell. I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around. What we must do now is ensure that lines of communication among student-veterans, VA and the schools remain open.”VA officials have said they expect to have a clean slate of GI Bill claims for the spring term, with plans to have any claim filed by Jan. 15 completed by Feb. 1.VA officials also have told veterans groups that about 60,000 claims already have been processed for the spring term.As of Jan. 19, VA officials had not responded to multiple requests from Military Times for updated information on unpaid claims.For the fall term, according to the report given to veterans groups, VA paid students about $672 million in living stipends, book allowances and other cash benefits, and paid $505 million to schools. It also paid $214 million in advance payments to student-veterans at the beginning of the fall semester, when $3,000 emergency payments were provided because of delays in processing living stipends.No announcement has been made about whether the $3,000 emergency payments will be authorized again for the spring semester.

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