New GI Bill Equals New Opportunity

What To Do With My Post 911 GI-Bill

November 24th, 2008

When I joined the Navy back in 1980 going to college wasn’t one of the life options that appealed to me. After all, I didn’t like sitting in a classroom during high school why would I think sitting in a classroom in college would have been any different. I wanted the adventure of the Navy, so I joined.

In November 1980 I arrived at Navy boot camp and was offered a college program. The program I was offered, Veterans Educational Assistance Program (VEAP), required an investment from me – for every dollar I put in it would be matched with two dollars. The maximum I could invest was $2700 leaving a total of like $8100 for college. Not liking school very much in the first place this didn’t seem like a very good turnover for my hard earned cash so I didn’t enroll.

Sometime in the mid-80’s the Montgomery GI-Bill (MGIB) came out. If I recall the MGIB was a $100 a month for the first 12 months and paid you like $10,800 total over 36 months for up to 10 years after you got out of the service, that was a little better deal than the VEAP. The opportunity for those enrolled in VEAP to switch to the MGIB presented itself. If you put as little as a dollar into VEAP you could convert to the MGIB as long as you invested the amount of money it took to get to the $1200 (if you already put more than $1200 in you got a refund). If you didn’t sign-up for VEAP you could NOT enroll/switch to the new MGIB. I, as I mentioned, did not sign up for VEAP.

Fast forward to today. My oldest Son is attending college to be a lawyer, he is using the MGIB with the Navy College Fund. We had a few questions pertaining to the remainer of his MGIB benefit and whether it would make sense or not to wait till the fall-2009 semester to use the Post 9-11 GI-Bill. We made a call to the VA and asked a few questions and while doing so I threw in my experience with VEAP and the MGIB…

It was like winning the lottery. I am eligible for the Post 9-11 GI-Bill. I didn’t need to be signed up for VEAP then convert to the MGIB, I don’t need to do anything more than I have done already. I served the time required “Post 9-11″ on active duty.

Don’t get me wrong, I still am not sure I even want to go to college. Getting up and going to school doesn’t appeal to me. Don’t really see the benefit but at the same time I don’t want to waste away a benefit I am due. It will take some thought, research and reflection. I did look at a list of majors offered at our local university and saw one that may interest me, “Sport and Leisure Management”, if I can get credit for my life experience (I have DirectTV in HD and a leather couch). Heck, I may already be a P.HD!

Just call me Doctor

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