Student veterans’ benefits has delays

Complications with the GI Bill are causing delays in funding for student veterans on campus.

The Post 9/11 GI Bill can cover tuition, housing and additional fees for veterans and children of veterans. However, this GI Bill is far more complicated than previous military benefit programs. Even now specifics of the program are still being worked out, causing delays in funding.

Put into effect last month, the Post 9/11 GI Bill provides more money than previous GI bills, creating additional complications.

“The new one conceivably has a lot more money available for students – depending on their situation – so in many cases they have more benefits available to them. They have less flexibility in what they do with it,” said Margaret Baechtold, director of the Veterans Support Services. “It’s much more complicated, but in the end it should be a better deal for students because they should have more money available to them.”

The convoluted nature of the new program also means that the fine points of bureaucracy are still being worked out, even as students are being promised financial aid.

“They’ve kind of been inventing the rules as we go along,” Baechtold said. “Some things have changed even in the last week.”

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs is clarifying the rules, which will impact how much money students will get, she said.

Such complications have led to inevitable delays. Sarah Gibson, student services assistant for the Veteran Support Services, described the paperwork as “very time intensive,” so students will have to wait a little longer than usual to receive their benefits.

According to the Veteran Affairs Web site, about 275,000 education work itemsacross the nation have yet to be processed. This time last year, only about 65,000 items were on the department’s processing list.

Baechtold said the IU Veterans Support Services has been working with the bursar to prevent late fees and penalties from appearing on bills of students awaiting VA processing.

“We’re here to try to make this work correctly for students,” Baechtold said. “We’ll do the best we can, but the guidance is continuing to change, and the VA’s got a lot more things to finalize and so people have to be patient.”

As kinks in the program get ironed out, Nick Bielinski, president of the Student Veterans Association, said he expects to see more veterans taking advantage of the new GI Bill at IU.

“It’s hard to beat what the GI Bill has to offer,” Bielinski said.  “Be looking for an increase of an older group of students coming in on campus. That’s going to increase a big percentage from here on out. You’re going to start seeing a lot of 22-year-olds and older starting at college as freshmen.”