Forever GI Bill FAQ

New Forever GI Bill®

On August 16, 2017, President Trump signed into law the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017 that passed both the House and the Senate unanimously nine days earlier. Harry W. Colmery was an American Legion Commander responsible for writing the original language that became the first GI Bill® – the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944.

Commonly known as the “Forever GI Bill,” the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017 picked up its nickname due to its main provision which eliminates the current 15-year use-it-or-lose-it constraint of the Post 9/11 GI Bill education benefit. This time limitation has been one of the sticking points of the Post 9/11 GI Bill with veterans and many veteran organizations since the implementation of the Post 9/11 GI Bill back in August 2009. While removing this “feature” is important, it' just one benefit change of many contained within the unprecedented Forever GI Bill.

GI Bill® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA). More information about educational benefits offered by the VA is available at the official U.S. government website at http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill.

Understanding the Forever GI Bill

While there have been several small changes throughout the years since the implementation of the Post 9/11 GI Bill back in 2009, the sweeping changes of this Bill affect not only a large population of veterans but also spouses, dependents and active duty personnel as well. The below FAQs will help to better understand this ground-breaking legislation.

What is the Forever GI Bill?

It's a law that implements changes with the intent of correcting several inequities that have been building up over the years to the current Post 9/11 GI Bill and even past GI Bills such as the now defunct Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP).

Who is it for?

Mainly veterans, but it also contains changes that affect spouses and dependent children having either received a Post 9/11 GI Bill transfer of benefits from a serving spouse or parent, respectively, or became eligible for the Fry Scholarship due to a serving parent dying in the line of duty. It also corrects some inequities between veteran themselves. Veterans of the National Guard and Reserves have been treated unfairly in some cases when compared to their active duty brethren even though they both served together under the same conditions.

Why was it changed?

Some of the rules of past and current GI Bills are more restrictive than they need to be. For example, as many as 2,800 veterans that had REAP–the GI Bill that provided educational benefits to Reservists and National Guardsmen serving on active duty prior to the Post 9/11 GI Bill but not currently using it–lost their entitlement eligibility due to a little-known sunset provision in that GI Bill. The VA is identifying and will be notifying those eligible individuals that their remaining unused REAP benefit will be transferred to Post 9/11 GI Bill entitlement and available to use.

Their remaining education benefits unexpectedly vanished with no replacement (up to now). Another example is unused Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits that expire 15 years from the date of discharge. Many veterans throughout the years have questioned why these earned benefits need, or should have, an expiration date. The answer is they shouldn't, but the fight has been long and hard to get the needed change. Several pieces of legislation throughout the years have been presented, but not only did none pass, most never even came up for a vote. The support for these individual pieces of legislation just was not there at the time.

What is different about it?

While other pieces of legislation included a change or two, this one contains many – 34 changes to be exact, with 15 of them major changes. The changes are focused on righting the wrongs contained in previous GI Bill incarnations.

When is it available?

Some changes were immediate because their effective date is prior to the Forever GI Bill implementation date. Other changes will be rolled out in the future. It's important to note that some changes will not affect all veterans, because those changes are based on when the veteran got out of the military.

For example, veterans with a discharge date before January 1, 2013 will still have their Post 9/11 GI Bill educational benefits expire 15 years from their date of discharge. Those with discharge dates on or after January 1, 2013 will not have that benefit expire and they can use it for as long as they have entitlement left.

The main reason for this separation of veterans according to their discharge date is money. With the money congress allocated to the Veterans Administration for the changes it needed to make to support the Forever GI Bill, the VA had to make some limiting hard decisions, so the greatest number of veterans could be covered with the funding Congress gave to the VA.

How do eligible veterans get the benefit?

Several of the changes will be automatic and not require anything from veterans. In other cases, a form must be submitted to apply for the specific change. For example, to restore lost education benefits due to a school closure, the Education Entitlement Restoration Request Due to school Closure or Withdrawal form must be filled out and submitted online through the “Submit a Questions” website or mailed to the Regional Processing Office in charge of the veteran's area. Also getting the STEM scholarship will require applying for it using an application process not yet implemented.

What happened in the past?

The whole purpose of the Forever GI Bill was to correct, under one piece of legislation, a group of inequities that have developed over several years. A few examples:

• The time National Guard and Reservists spent recuperating from being injured while mobilized on orders under Section 12301(h) of Title 10, U.S.C does not count toward Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility, but that same time does count for active duty personnel doing the same thing because they fell under a different type of order. Also Selected Reservists mobilized after June 30,2008 under orders section 12304(a) and 12304(b) now count toward Post 911 GI Bill eligibility.
  
• GI Bill eligibility lost due to a school closure could not be restored under the old law.
  
• Fry Scholarship recipients (spouses and dependent children that lost a serving member in the line of duty) were not eligible for the Yellow Ribbon Program (which is a feature of the Post 9/11 GI Bill – the same GI Bill the Fry Scholarship uses).

The list of inequities and unfairness in the GI Bill education benefits arena goes on. Individually, none of them could attract enough attention to warrant change, but once all of them were brought under one piece of legislation, it got the attention it deserved and passed through Congress unanimously.

Forever GI Bill Provisions

There are 34 changes included in the Forever GI Bill. Here are 15 changes having the greatest impact on the largest number of people and the effective dates of each change:

Miscellaneous Provisions

In addition to the 15 most important changes within the Forever GI Bill, there are several lesser known, but still important changes:

Permanent Work Study Program Approval

Under the current law, some work study programs were set to expire on June 30, 2022. With the change, work study programs including doing outreach for an SAA, providing hospital or domiciliary care or medical treatments for veterans, or performing administrative-type work at a national or State Veterans cemetery will receive permanent approval.

VetSuccess Program Expansion

The VetSuccess on Campus program has been limited in the past and not available to all veterans. That changed under the Forever GI Bill and will now expand and made available to as many veterans as possible.

Priority Enrollment Expansion

The VA will update their GI Bill Comparison Tool that will in-turn help veterans better identify schools that offer priority enrollment to students using the GI Bill. This will allow more veterans to take classes that may otherwise fill up before they have an opportunity to enroll in them.

Mandatory Training for School Certifying Officials

Each school that accepts GI Bill students must assign a School Certifying Official to help work student GI Bill issues, but up to now training for these individuals was not required.

GI Bill Usage Data

Mandated by the Forever GI Bill, usage data must be provided to Congress by various designated agencies so that Congress can see the effectiveness of the GI Bill programs and allocate money accordingly.

VA Automation

To speed up payments to GI Bill students, the VA promises to use automation and electronic processing to the maximum extent possible within their means. They are spending $30,000,000 updating their IT structure to handle the Forever GI Bill changes and speed up processing.

Additional Resources

There are several resources available pertaining to the Forever GI Bill. Below are five of the ones that provide the most diverse information about this sweeping legislation:

• Military Times
  A detailed article on the 11 most important things you should know about the Forever GI Bill of the total 34 changes in this outstanding legislation that passed both the House and Senate unanimously and signed by President Trump. If you are looking for a succinct read on the major changes brought about by this Bill, this is the article.
  
• Politico
  An overview on how Congress passed the Forever GI Bill which will provide over $3,000,000 of additional benefits for veterans and their families over the next ten years.
  
• Student Veterans of America
  A 48-page, in-depth, section-by-section “summary” of the Forever GI Bill legislative text and its regurgitation into language that can be understood by common non-legislative people. It starts out with a summary of the entire Bill and some history of the person the bill was named after – Harry W. Colmery. After that it takes each provision and breaks it down into easy-to-understand language.
  
• Task and Purpose
  A behind-the-scenes look at the estimated $70 million it will take to not only upgrade the VA's IT system, but to correct other issues the VA will face trying to implement those 34 overall changes created by the Forever GI Bill – like hiring 200 temporary workers to process claims by hand and getting them up to speed quickly so there is not an interruption of pay to veteran students until the VA's IT system is capable of handling the new workload.
  
• VA Website
  An unbiased summary on the VA website that highlights the 20 of the major provisions out of the 34 total changes in the Forever GI Bill.