Dear VSO Partners,

We are pleased to announce that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has reached a major milestone in serving our Nation’s Veterans. Yesterday, VA successfully implemented Sections 107 and 501 of the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Education Assistance Act, also known as the “Forever GI Bill” These sections dealt primarily with the calculation and processing of monthly housing allowance (MHA) payments under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This implementation brings us one step closer to fulfilling Secretary Wilke’s promise last fall of making GI Bill students’ MHA payments whole.

As you may be aware, the Integrated Colmery Delivery team has been hard at work since fall of 2018, when we announced the reset of efforts to implement these changes. This implementation allows us to pay MHA point forward in accordance with the law. With this change, our IT systems will begin paying MHA based on the campus where GI Bill students physically attend the majority of their classes and will align payments to the DoD MHA rate for beneficiaries who first used their housing benefit after January 1, 2018. Over the next few months, the team will shift focus to retroactively correct claims for GI Bill beneficiaries who received MHA payments based on a different campus location due to the implementation delay of the rate changes and will work towards implementing additional Colmery Act Provisions. This milestone is just one step towards completing implementation of the Forever GI Bill. We look forward to sharing future milestones with you.

To learn more about these MHA rate changes and how they may impact GI Bill students, We encourage you to review the attached GI Bill Monthly Housing Allowance Communication Toolkit and Student Monthly Housing Allowance Guide.

What does this mean for GI Bill students?

Starting in December, students may see their rate change depending on how they are impacted by MHA changes. All students who have received an MHA since August 1, 2018 and are impacted by Section 501 will receive a letter informing them of whether they were overpaid, underpaid or not impacted. This retroactive work will continue through 2020, as VA will begin accepting updated records from schools in circumstances when the student was studying at a different campus than originally provided to VA from August 1, 2018 to November 30, 2019. More information on this process will be provided in early 2020.

We encourage you to communicate this information with the GI Bill students you serve.

We have several pre-written materials to guide your communication, such as an updated GI Bill Monthly Housing Allowance Communications Toolkit, including an MHA Rate Change infographic and  GI Bill Sections 107 and 501 FAQs.

If you have additional questions, reach out to us at ForeverGIBill.vbavaco@va.gov.

We will continue to keep you informed and we appreciate your continued support of GI Bill beneficiaries.

Respectfully,

Education Service