Can Tuition Assistance Help With College?

When you joined the service you may remember hearing about tuition assistance. It’s a benefit available to everyone, active or reserves, in every branch of the service. It is entirely funded by the federal government, with the exception of some states’ air and army national guards that use state budgets to fund tuition assistance.

Tuition assistance is available for anyone who is an active member of the military through the completion of the course in which they are applying for. In other words, the course can’t end before your enlistment.

It is the responsibility of the service member to apply for tuition assistance through their appropriate channels—it is not a benefit that simply appears when you register for your courses. Typically, you must get the approval of your unit commander in order to apply for tuition assistance. You must be a service member in good standing and cannot have any flags in your file.

The current rate for tuition assistance is $250/credit hour. Each member of the service eligible for tuition assistance has $4500 available to them per military fiscal year (1 October-30 September). It can be used for traditional college courses or trade schools.

There are various public schools (particularly community colleges) with low tuition rates and private colleges that offer discounts that are based on the amount funded by tuition assistance. These can allow the service member the ability to pay for the majority of their education on tuition assistance alone.

However, not many colleges fall into the category of affordable these days. To confront the trend of rising tuition costs, President Bush signed an amendment to the Montgomery GI Bill called Tuition Assistance Top-up. It allowed active military students to use their GI Bill benefits to add to their tuition assistance to cover the additional costs per course for more costly programs.

Either alone or in conjunction with the Top-up program, tuition assistance can be a tremendous asset to active and reserve members of the military to enhance their careers and may be worth re-enlisting for to make sure you maximize your education benefits available to you!

David J. Renza is a military enrollment counselor, VA certifying official and adjunct professor at Post University in Waterbury, Connecticut. He is also the co-author of Military Education Benefits for College, which was published by Savas Beatie in May of 2010. He also maintains a blog on military education called The Most Powerful Weapon.