Wednesday, April 23, 2008

MGI Bill Changes Coming?

I read something this Sunday in our newspaper that had me pretty excited. There are a couple competing bills being pushed in the House right now that would expand the Montgomery GI Bill quite a bit. Both reintroduce a living stipend, something that was once a core benefit after WWII, and increase the tuition amount, although one is definitely more generous than the other. Other changes include making GI bill funds ineligible to be counted as income for Federal financial aid purposes and increasing the window to use such benefits after service to 15 years from the current 10. It looks pretty good that at least one of these bills will pass. Several higher-ups worry this will hurt retention, not help it. Frankly, I think they are right. When I heard these changes, it got me excited. My first thought was, yay, here's another option for us if we decide to get out! Oliver still has to finish his schooling; it's been pretty tough for him to find the time to do it while on active duty, which was the original plan. With all these changes, we could conceivably consider sending him to school full time, while I worked a part time job. With both boys in school, we could probably juggle it so there was no child care needed, either. Who knows what we will do, or if it will end up being good enough to push us in that direction, but it's something to think about. If anyone wants to read the article themselves, here it is.

1 sonar pings:

Keri said...

I had the same exact thoughts when I originally read about this a couple months ago. J has had a very difficult time completing classes while on active duty too- he's gone so often on such short notice. We've often said he would have a better chance of finishing his education if he just got out.

Should be interesting to see if these bills pass. I bet they'll see alot of soldiers leaving the service :(