#Middlebury #Veterans
If you’re going to school and were expecting your housing stipend benefit money by now, you’re not alone. Over 300,000 of you are in the same boat. Either you’re receiving incorrect low amounts or you’re receiving nothing at all.
Why is this happening? It’s because of old IT programming that was never upgraded to include changes in the Forever GI Bill. The machines don’t know how to make the correct calculations.
Talk to the people at your school first to be sure your paperwork was sent in, proving you’re in school. If you’re a first-time student, expect things to take a bit longer because you have to be put in the system.
If someone you talk to at the Department of Veterans Affairs suggests you get put in the hardship queue, don’t jump at it. You have no way of knowing just how much that will speed things up because you don’t know how many people would be ahead of you in either of those lines. You’ll have to go on your best gut hunch. Call the GI Bill Hotline, 1-888-442-4551.
If you’re not a full-time student, you’ll need to ask how your housing allowance is calculated. It’s a complicated formula, and much of it depends on your individual situation. It involves your rate of pursuit, expressed as a percentage calculated by dividing the number of credits you’re enrolled in by the number of credits considered full time. If you’re enrolled in distance learning (you don’t actually go to a classroom setting), the above is cut in half.
Beware: Even when you get paid, you might get the 2017 amount because the computer can’t calculate the 2018 rates. They’ll catch up later on back amounts.
As a last resort, call your U.S. senators’ offices.
(c) 2018 King Features Synd. Inc.
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