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Bill to change new GI Bill coming Thursday

A compromise veteran’s education bill that would modify the year-old Post-9/11 GI Bill could be introduced in the House of Representatives as early as Thursday by an Idaho lawmaker.

Sponsored by Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, an Army veteran, the bill represents an agreement between major veterans’ service organizations and the Veterans Affairs Department on ways to fix, improve or otherwise modify the benefits program that was launched Aug. 1, 2009.

The changes would not take effect until 2011, a delay included at the request of VA.

Among the key changes:

• Tuition and fee calculations will be simplified so that VA will pay full tuition and full fees for any eligible veteran who is a full-time student at a public college or university. For those attending private schools, tuition and fees would be capped at $20,000 a year per student.

This would abolish the current procedure of setting a reimbursement cap for each state based on the cost of tuition and fees for the state’s most expensive four-year public school. For many private school students, $20,000 for tuition and fees would be a substantial increase over current state caps.

• Active-duty service members and spouses of active-duty members using transferred benefits would become eligible for the $1,000 book allowance that already goes to other student veterans using the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

• Living stipends would be available to people taking distance learning classes without the current requirement that they must take as least one classroom course to qualify.

In addition, a slight change in wording would make living stipends available to anyone taking enough credits to be considered a half-time student. Current law limits stipends to those attending more than half time.

• Service members transferring GI Bill benefits to a spouse or children — an option aimed at career service members — would include the right to transfer any so-called “kickers” that increase payments so that family members could use the money. But the proposal also requires the Defense Department to start reimbursing VA for benefits used by family members, which might lead to future restrictions on who could share their education benefits.

• For National Guard and reserve members, the bill gives credit for full-time active service in the Active Guard and Reserve program and time mobilized for natural disasters toward earning benefits, service that currently doesn’t count. And Guard and reserve members would have a better chance of receiving additional college help if they attend private schools, because the bill would extend the Yellow Ribbon matching-grant program to those who receive a reduced percentage of benefits because they served less than a full active-duty obligation and were not combat-disabled.

• On-the-job training and apprenticeships programs, now excluded from the Post-9/11 GI bill, could be covered, in many cases making benefits 30 percent greater than tuition payments under previous GI Bill programs.

Minnick said the changes are the result of negotiations with VA and major military and veterans groups, all aimed at making a good program even better.

“In this era where education has gotten so expensive and difficult to obtain, society owes them a hand to get … the best education possible,” Minnick said.

While he is not on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee to which the bill will be referred, Minnick said he is signing up a bipartisan collection of original cosponsors that will include committee members.

“It is an easy sell” to get cosponsors, he said.

The American Legion, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Student Veterans of America and the Military Officers Association of America are among those who have worked on the compromise.

Many of these provisions are similar to provisions of S. 3447, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010, introduced earlier this year by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman. Akaka, who is now refining his bill, plans to bring it to a vote in his committee Aug. 5.

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, which will receive Minnick’s bill, has scheduled a Sept. 16 hearing on veterans’ education benefits.

DISCUSS: THE GI BILL CHANGES