A dozen veterans awaited their GI Bill student welfare checks before they could appear as the spring semester at Colorado Springs University began in January. They waited, waited more until the money finally arrived – April.
By then, the three left.
It usually takes weeks for veterans to get GI bill benefits from the Veterans Administration – funds for tuition, textbooks, and housing. But under the Trump administration, Jeff Deickman, the campus’ senior and assistant director of military affairs, said it will take at least three times longer.
Deickman’s peers at other colleges say Virginia’s paperwork often goes wrong, leading to further delays — and some student veterans are dropping out of school.
“I could spend three hours on bad days with the phone call in Virginia,” said Dickman, a 20-year-old Army veteran and a doctoral student. “They answered only one student’s questions at a time, so I had to hang up and start over.”
Nearly 600,000 veterans received a total of GI Billion Billion Benefits According to Virginia, education was conducted last year.
But the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of VA by about 30,000 positions and remove the Department of Education, which manages some of the student aid for veterans, has led to funding delays and hindered students’ understanding of their educational benefits and their ability to get answers.
“Wrapping our arms around part of this is the opacity of the whole thing,” said Barmak Nassirian, vice president of higher education policy for veterans’ education success. “We’re kind of like influence.”
Frustration installation
A 33-year-old Navy veterinarian in Colorado said the “the whole process” had become a mess, demanding that his name would not be revealed due to fear of federal authorities’ retaliation. “It makes many of us feel anxious.”
Social media reveals this anxiety and depression. Veterans complain in post Benefits and errors of stagnation.
“I just wish I could talk to someone who could help, but all the delegates didn’t seem to be able to help, just telling me to reapply, I have 4x, just to deny it,” Reddit wrote, trying to forgive student loans.
“Full nightmare,” another Reddit poster wrote. “Delay, error and ignorant staff. No one knows anything now.”
Federal law guarantees that student loans for disabled veterinarians will be forgiven. But some veterans with permanent disabilities reported that their loan release application was denied. Some say that the Ministry of Education then wrote a letter saying it was a mistake, but it took several months to correct the error.
The education department did not respond to a request for comment. VA spokesman Gary Kunich declined to answer general questions about welfare delays unless the Hesinger report provides the names of veterans and colleges who reported the issue.
almost 17,000 VA employees left According to a VA press release, the agency is expected to leave about 12,000 people by the end of September by June.
Veterinarians have difficulty gaining benefits
VA interrupt threat “Get education benefits for veteransjust as more veterans and service members may be turning to higher education and vocational training.
This is the existing frustration. Veterans have already struggled to obtain the educational benefits they receive.
“The eligibility rules can be confusing and full of “time-consuming traditional Chinese tape festivals.” As a result, “many students and institutions serving them rely on VA staff to interpret the rules, resolve disputes and ensure benefits are processed on time.” With fewer employees, there is a risk of support systems breaking. ”
Veterans in the United States are one of the largest advocacy groups and have not responded to duplicate interview requests. Ten colleges in the country’s largest senior induction (including San Diego, Georgia, Angelo, Arizona and Syracuse) also did not answer or decline to answer questions.
Veterans and advocates also worry that education sector cuts could erode for-profit colleges that are primarily receiving GI bill benefits. Veterans are twice as likely to attend these universities as other students, according to the National Institute of Policy Studies after Middle School.
Lindsay Church, a U.S. military veteran, said the risks are especially high for low-income veterans and people from different backgrounds. The church says these student veterans are unlikely to come from college-educated families, making them more vulnerable to fraud.
Delays and errors
But the most direct problem is payment delays and paperwork errors, said student veterans and their consultants.
In the San Diego military city, where thousands of former and current service members attend college, this year Miramar College student veterans waited for months to listen to a work research contract on VA that had previously been approved within days.
Lachaune Duhart, the school’s director of veterans affairs and military education, said the contracts allow students to be paid for work related to veterans while they are in school.
Duhart said others had no textbooks due to delays in VA payments.
“Many students cannot lose these benefits,” she said, describing the anger that many students expressed during the long waiting time this year. Some dropped out of school.
“A lot of times, this emotional reaction causes these students not to return to the institution,” she said.
Some stories told about veterans without a degree who chose to look for a job rather than continuing their education because of being frustrated with VA – although research has shown that college graduation can greatly increase future income.
Those who maintain extra stress or cannot answer their questions.
“We always tell them to prepare for delays,” said Phillip Morris, associate professor of educational research and leadership at Colorado Springs University. “But if you can’t pay rent because your benefits aren’t flowing the way you expect it is that more and more anxiety and stress translates into the classroom.”
Krupnik wrote This story for Hechinger Reporta nonprofit, independent news organization focuses on inequality and innovation in education.
