 "Photo: Elizabeth Miller / UCD Advocate")
Sergeant Simon Jacobson’s professors at UC Denver have been understanding of his military commitments—he missed the first week of school, but he said it wasn’t a problem with his professors.
He’s also missed his first tuition payment, but the Auraria administrators have been understanding of that as well. Like over 25,000 other veterans and members of the reserve, he’s still waiting for the educational benefits promised by the Post-9/11 GI Bill that went into effect on Aug. 1 to appear.
“The school is pretty good about it,” he said. “They don’t really follow the same due times when they know you’re a veteran because they know they’ll get the money eventually.”
He’s doing OK without the living expense stipend promised by the bill as well, but he has friends who aren’t doing so well.
Late in September, Veterans Affairs announced they would begin issuing emergency payments of up to $3,000 for veterans who need to cover some of the costs included in what the new GI Bill will cover—and that’s everything from tuition to books to living expenses.
His paperwork was just resubmitted, and he expects it will be another 35 days until he receives any payment.
“[Veterans Affairs] didn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare for such a huge change,” he said. “This is the biggest change since the original GI Bill came out.”
Sergeant Jacobson joined the Army in 2004 to pay for school. He’s still in the Army Reserve, and said the new GI Bill has made all the difference in him attending classes at UCD to continue working toward his bachelors in international business.
“I wouldn’t be able to afford this semester if they didn’t do it,” he said. “The old GI Bill didn’t pay any tuition at all—zero. It was just a monthly amount [to help with living expenses]. The new one is the first one that will pay for tuition.”
That amount was fixed and limited in ways the new bill is not.
“With how much they raised tuition this year, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for school this fall,” he said. “Without the new GI Bill, I wouldn’t have had any tuition assistance at all, and I wouldn’t have been able to afford it.”
Sergeant Jacobson receives tuition assistance as a member of the Reserve. But benefits have been increased and extended to dependents of veterans who served after Sept. 11, 2001.
The new GI Bill, he said, is “definitely the best thing they could have done to get better Army recruits. It’s made a lot of people go to school that wouldn’t have.”
The Post-9/11 GI Bill made an estimated two million veterans and their dependants eligible to receive financial support for tuition and fees, as well as a monthly housing allowance and a stipend for books and supplies. According to the VA Office of Public Affairs, 25,000 applications from veterans were being processed as of late September, and more than 27,500 students have already received benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Sergeant Jacobson says he doesn’t know anyone who’s received their benefits.
“The VA was not prepared for the response they got,” said Patrick Browne, certifying technician for Veteran Student Services at UCD. The amount of people who applied, he said, was overwhelming. His office serves as the relay between VA and veteran students at UCD, helping process certifications so the VA will issue benefits.
“There’s only so much we can do,” he said. “We’ve taken care of them on our end.”
The Veteran Student Services office has seen a 20 percent increase in traffic, according to Browne. He said he expects to see an additional 10–15 percent increase next semester.
Browne said the regional VA office, which issues the payments, is facing an eight-week backlog. In other regions, offices are up to 10-12 weeks behind.
“I expected it, being a new program, to have some glitches, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,” Browne said. “But I think everything is starting to catch up with itself.”
On Sept. 25, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced that the VA will start releasing $3,000 emergency payments to veterans who have applied for education benefits, but have not yet received a payment. To receive that payment, a veteran had to visit a VA office, photo ID and proof of enrollment in hand. Meaning, Browne said, residents of other corners of Colorado—and of other states—had to visit the VA office in Lakewood.
Effective Oct. 2, veterans can now file for those benefits online.
“VA is adapting to meet the financial needs of our veteran students who are on campus.They should be focusing on their studies, not worrying about financial difficulties,” Shinseki said in a Sept. 30 press release announcing the change. Veterans who apply online are expected to have their payments processed within three days and receive them by mail. The amount they receive depends on their expected monthly educational benefits.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill supplements the Montgomery GI Bill, which was the first program to provide funding for veterans to attend educational programs. It provided up to 36 months of benefits and, according to Browne, roughly $1,500 a month for students at UCD.
“It really didn’t cover the cost of education,” he said.
When the Post-9/11 GI Bill went into effect on Aug. 1, it allowed veterans who served three years of active duty since Sept. 11, 2001, to receive up to $497 per credit hour, with no limit on credits, and a maximum of $45,387.50. Veterans attending classes at UCD can also receive a $1,537 allowance for housing each month.
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