$2800 a month for housing? That is $30,000 a year. There is no college that charges that much for room and board in a dorm for a student.
$2800 a month for housing?>>
Military housing allowance, not college. With the GI Bill, a housing allowance is paid at the rate of an E5 w/dependents, based on the zip code of the college. For Harvard it would be $2631 a month.
The $2800 is based on what an E-5 with a family would receive for Housing if living in the Boston area. It is probably the most generous portion of this benefit especially for those who choose schools in high cost of living areas. The family member who received the benefit gets the housing allowance. If the service member/parent is on active duty, there will be two housing allowances.
I’m confused - a child receiving the parent’s GI bill education benefit could receive $20k per year for tuition plus $33.6k per year for housing? Why would this hypothetical student even need any other aid?
Tuition under the GI Bill is capped at the highest in-state rate for the state in which the school is located.
$857 tuition
$4707 curriculum fees
Above are the tuition and curriculum fees for UMASS Amherst…per semester. As you can see, the fees are the big ticket item.
Cap, in cases like this breakdown, do the GI benefits include the tuition and curriculum fees?
Tons of good tips and yes the glass is half full. Better visit our local Education Center. We have two needing to go thru college and not sure if the GI benefits transferred to them for their dad are split in half? I would think so but not sure.
Yes I can stop whining now. I’m sure we could make whatever college work and we are fortunate one child is bring rewarded for being especially bright.
It’ll be interesting to see what our eldest decides. He is more frugal than we are but I could also see him floating a plan where he would borrow the money from us. It’ll mean less options when DH gets out and wants to start his business but hey you’re right. At some point you gotta prioritize things? Doesn’t help that my DH and I had free college rides ourselves with ROTC and West Point (believe me we tried to interest him in the military) and no college debt. The military isn’t for everyone and honestly it’s much more difficult these days. A friend’s son had an ROTC scholarship and his son just got Reserves. He wanted active duty badly and in the same field as his father. Do you know their family decided to pay back the $40k and his son will now enlist!
I mean $80k. Ouch!
Yes, GI Bill also covers fees. Also, there is a separate cap for private school; I think it is around 17K.
The Bill benefits can be split in multiple ways; it doesn’t have to be half and half and can be changed. However, all possible recipients must be designated before retirement or ETSing.
Yuo do NOT have to give half of the GI bill to any child. You can give ALL to one child if you want.
But you may want to “do the math.”
If your child ends up at a school that gives huge merit for being NMF, and it is a full OOS tuition Yellow Ribbon School as well, then you might want to take the whole enchilada, bank/invest the profits (paying taxes though as needed), and set that aside for younger child.
A yellow ribbon school that will cover full OOS tuition plus anything else (housing?), plus will hand you a huge merit award will likely net you a substantial profit. I know a number of NMFs at Bama who combined with the GI Bill Yellow Ribbon award are banking quite a bit. Bama’s tuition portion is specifically named as “equal to OOS tuition” just so GI bill students can accept both.
Oh I agree. I just didn’t know how GI Bill works and how you portion it out. Honestly second son will need all the help he can get and I doubt he will ever see merit. Gotta be smart now and not emotional. Thanks.
Also interesting to note is that not only is the tuition benefit portion of the GI Bill tax free for federal purposes (see IRS Publication 970, page 7-‘Veterans Benefits’), but that monthly housing allowance is too. Wow!
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Oh I agree. I just didn’t know how GI Bill works and how you portion it out. Honestly second son will need all the help he can get and I doubt he will ever see merit. Gotta be smart now and not emotional. Thanks.
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Many families face this. We actually faced this for a short time. Younger son was always an A student, but he wasn’t a great test-taker when older son was applying to colleges, so we assumed we would be paying full-freight for him when his time came. In the end, S2 surprised us by significantly improving his test-taking abilities (after learning how to correct his slowish-reading issue), so it didn’t turn out how we thought, but many families do face this. And, unless the younger kids are lazy students, many parents want all their kids to have a rather equivalent college experience…so there can be a desire to “grab merit” when possible to free up funds for children that won’t get much or any.
Just note that the GI Bill is the last payer, so grants and scholarships (except Pell Grant) are deducted first. The GI Bill will then cover the remainder, up to the cap.