Son Starting College

[Guest jangrin]

We are filling out the VA form Form 22-5490 for our son to request the educational assistance for DEA Educational Benefits. (Chapter 35 educational).

Once the form is mailed -does anyone know how long before we hear back?

Does VA send a letter of eligibility, that he takes to the school?

He is scheduled to start college in August.

Also, we have read in a couple of different places that it may be best to defer getting the educational benefits until later, but it doesn't explain why it would be better, does anyone have any imput?

Tt looks like the monthly benefit is $860.00 for full time school. Is this correct? Sorry for so many questions. I trust in the folks at Hadit more than the VA counselors.

Thank you for any advise/knowledge on this.

Jangrin

[Guest jangrin]

Thanks Everyone,

You are all very helpful. Actually we are going to send in the information for both my son and myself. We will both get our eligibility letter from the VA, I am also thinking very seriously about going back to school.

This is a great benefit for dependent and spouses. I really would like to take advantage of this opportunity. Thanks for the direction.

Jangrin

Edited June 7, 2007 by jangrin

[JR Reihs]

Berta,

thats a new one on me, having my 2 kids and my wife using Chpt 35, I have never seen a structure for payment like that. Learn something new everyday.

Jangrin,

do not hesitate if your mind is ready, one of the few dependent benefits congress realy gave thought to.

[Guest jangrin]

My husband and I were talking about the education benefit.

He said, after he got home from Vietnam, and he went to college. His college (private college) tuition was the SAME as the GI School Benefit. Each time the GI Benefit was increased so was his tuition. I wonder if the internet schools are set up the same way. They know exactly how much the vets get for school and how much Chapter 35 benefits are.

The only way to find out fees for internet is to fill out all their information request then they will give you info. I really don't want to deal with the phone calls and emails right now. Anyone going to school through the internet, willing to share with us their fees for on-line tuition? I bet they are the same as the benefit.

Just wondering -Jangrin

[Berta]

Jangrin-at American Military University I pay and attend on line-

and the courses are usually all $250 a credit- so a 3 credit hour course is $750.00

My Chap 35 date ran out months ago but my present claim will re=establish a better date -possibly -with a direct SC death award-

I am not depending on it-the VA has paid for almost half of my degree so far.

Some of the courses require labs-so my last course cost me $1,000 with the lab requirement.

Again as a widow on Chap 35-this might be different in some aspects than what your son will go through-as far as the payments go-

my school is set up for inservice military at all levels of rank- and they get TAP and GI Bill so that might be a factor in how they are handling my Chap 35-they have very few civilians enrolled.I used to be the only one.Think there is more now-

But for my daughter whether she goes GI Bill as a veteran or Chap 35- it seems she too will have to pay the tuition first then the VA will reimburse her-at AMU- she never considered any other college-

their MAsters Degree in Intelligence is excellent and many officers take this course.---dont know how other on line schools would work.

I got half my degree at a traditional campus-I know how that is compared to online-

Rod went to Corning college-under Voc Rehab-it took him over an hour travel time and then dealing with the parking etc---

I find that internet is easier in those respects but sometimes my exams are proctored-

meaning I have to square away a librarian or school teacher here in NY with my professor and he sends them the exam that I take timed- in the library.

That works OK as long as we dont have an enormous amount of snow and the road crew gets up here early to clear the road.

Please consider using the benefit yourself- you will never regret it- but the work can be hard.

College takes carefully structuring your time and doing a lot of reading and writing.

I love it- I plan on going for another degree as soon as I graduate- whether VA pays or not-

PS- Books can cost hundreds of dollars-My school has a used book store and we can sell back our books to the school if we want to.

I get mine on a Marine Corp grant- some schools have book grant programs-

and I keep them because often I need to accessbooks from prior courses to wortk on present courses-

I took a meteorology science course -just finished that-and found I needed to dig out my WWII texts because my last essay was how weather determined D -Day- June 6th-anniversary-which just passed-this

could easily have been a different day for the invasion but Eisenhower paid heed to his meteorologists and Hitler ignored what his weathermen were telling him-the same thing----

there was a small window of opportunity to strike- by air ,land , and sea due to the weather on June 6th 1944. (Operation Overlord)

I did so much research that I dreamed a lot of Eisenhower and the plans to invade Normandy coast.

It pays to consider keeping the text books rather than sell them back to the school.

[Jay Johnson]

My husband and I were talking about the education benefit.

He said, after he got home from Vietnam, and he went to college. His college (private college) tuition was the SAME as the GI School Benefit. Each time the GI Benefit was increased so was his tuition. I wonder if the internet schools are set up the same way. They know exactly how much the vets get for school and how much Chapter 35 benefits are.

The only way to find out fees for internet is to fill out all their information request then they will give you info. I really don't want to deal with the phone calls and emails right now. Anyone going to school through the internet, willing to share with us their fees for on-line tuition? I bet they are the same as the benefit.

Just wondering -Jangrin

Honestly, I wouldn't go to an "internet school". A lot of them are shady at best and the overwhelming majority of regular schools offer 99% of their course work online. I'm going to Washington State University, at the moment, and 100% of my psych degree is online and I still get the 50% tuition savings due to the wife being a 100% disabled veteran (as per state law here).

So, find a "good" local (or distant) college and see what they offer in terms of online classes. Some schools offer more than others, but I've been to 4 different schools in various parts of the country and most of them had a LOT of online classes. Thus far, I haven't had to take a single class at the campus.

As for cost - Since I'm paying 50% tuition, I end up banking about 60-70% of the Ch 35 money. If I had a pell grant I would be making 10K or so a year, EXTRA, to go to school. It's really a benefit that you can't beat. However, that is for a bach, but when I hit the masters+ level the cost per credit hour increases a ton and the Ch 35 benefits will likely not cover the full cost (even with the 50% reduction).

[Guest jangrin]

Jay,

Honestly, I wouldn't go to an "internet school". A lot of them are shady at best and the overwhelming majority of regular schools offer 99% of their

So, find a "good" local (or distant) college and see what they offer in terms of online classes. Some schools offer more than others, but I've been to 4 different schools in various parts of the country and most of them had a LOT of online classes. Thus far, I haven't had to take a single class at the campus.

Thanks you for your insight on this. Have you taken any out of state classes? Do you have to pay the out of state tuition fees when you are doinf internet/distant learning classes? Also, how does the Pell Grant work? Is that based on finanacial need? Are you paying 50% tuition because your state gives you a break on the fees? I'm in Texas and they don't give any breaks on tuition as far as I have been able to tell. I've been searching for information on that but havn't found any yet. Maybe someone on Hadit knows for sure.

Thanks again, Jangrin