@crtl12
You may already be aware of this, but I was not until recently; if you are a veteran that qualifies for the Yellow Ribbon Program, expect to receive zero institutional financial aid/scholarship. Only those veterans who are NOT eligible for the Yellow Ribbon Program are eligible to receive institutional financial aid/scholarship.
That said, there are a couple things you can do to lower the out-of-pocket expense and keep your costs at or below the combined amount you will receive from the GI Bill + Yellow Ribbon Program.
If you’re covered under VA healthcare or other private healthcare insurance, you can forego the $3,433 per-year student healthcare plan and cut that expense out of the equation.
If you do not plan on working while attending Columbia and don’t already already qualify to receive a Pell Grant, you can contact the GS financial aid office to fill out and submit an income adjustment statement in order to qualify for a Pell Grant of up to $6095 per year. This is assuming that you did not previously qualify for a Pell Grant because you applied for financial aid using your 2017 tax returns which reflected earning an income during that tax year.
Columbia charges tuition a per credit basis; this is unlike most other colleges that charge a flat tuition rate for 12-17 credits. Your 36 months of GI Bill usage is used up by the day, not by the semester, so with the length of Columbia’s semesters in terms of days, the GI Bill will you last you just about 5 years if used at Columbia. So, if necessary in order to keep per-semester tuition costs as low as possible, you could elect to take a lower number of credits per semester and just attend for a longer amount of time.
Good luck!