Greetings GI Bill Partners,

This has been a very busy fall term for us here in the Veterans Benefits Administration Education Service! With the recent release of My Education Benefits, we now have the capability to automate original claims for Veteran and Service members applying for Post-9/11 GI Bill® benefits, and made the application more user friendly with pre-filled information including service history. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your help as we roll out this new process that impacts GI Bill students, as well as you.

Veterans Day is almost upon us. This is a special time to acknowledge the sacrifice that our Veterans and their families have and continue to make, in service of our nation. On Tuesday, November 9, VA is hosting a Virtual Veterans Day Symposium, Remembering Our History and Honoring Our Future. The symposium will honor Veterans by remembering their legacy and service to our country, and will educate, inform and empower Veterans, Service members, family members, caregivers and survivors about valuable VA resources.  We hope that you will share the event with your GI Bill students.

As we approach Veterans Day, I want to express my sincere gratitude to you for all that you do in service of our nation’s Veterans. As we continue this journey together and look toward the future of the GI Bill, I want to thank you for all that you have done and the service you continue to provide. The success GI Bill students experience in pursuit of their educational goals reflects your hard work and dedication.

Respectfully,

Joseph L. Garcia

Executive Director, Education Service

Please remember the following about Dual Certification and 1010 2^nd Certification:

Dual Certifications:  This is also known as ‘Zero T&Fs’, an optional reporting method that allows SCOs to initially submit term dates with the credit load but without T&Fs.  This is followed by an amended cert that includes the T&Fs once the student’s financial aid is finalized and drop/add has ended.

• 1010 2^nd Certification:  This is required within 30 days of the last day the school allows a student to drop without financial or academic penalty.  If the second dual certification (aka Zero T&Fs) is submitted within those 30 days, it can satisfy the 1010 requirement.

Note: Any pending change (including SCO submissions) in place when the student’s monthly verification is received at the end of the month blocks the verification text or email going to the student. This can cause the student to be concerned and contact the SCO, ECC, etc. It does not block the release of the housing payment for the student unless no verification has occurred for the past 2 months.

Enrollment Manager will go-live in 2023. Check out the Enrollment Manager video on YouTube to learn more about the system and the steps we are taking to help you seamlessly transition over from VA-ONCE.   

Are you looking to learn more about the system before it goes live? We will be hosting an Enrollment Manager Workshop on Tuesday, November 15 from noon – 4:00 p.m. ET in Washington DC, where you will have a sneak-peek of Enrollment Manager’s features and walk-through different scenarios. For those who are unable to attend in person, the livestream link will be available a week before the event. This workshop also qualifies as approved training for SCOs’ annual training requirements! Register today.   

Prior to go-live, there will be required trainings for you to complete which will be available starting in December. In the months leading up to the release, you will receive more information on additional training opportunities, resources, and details on when VA-ONCE will sunset. We look forward to supporting you with more materials to help you increase your knowledge about Enrollment Manager before it goes live.   

The PACT Act is a new law that expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances. The law expands and extends eligibility for VA health care for Veterans with toxic exposures and Veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf War, and post-9/11 eras. It also adds more presumptive-exposure locations for Agent Orange and radiation. The PACT Act requires VA to provide a toxic exposure screening to every Veteran enrolled in VA healthcare.

To learn more about the PACT Act please review the resources at: The PACT Act and Your VA Benefits | Veterans Affairs..

Every fall and spring term, VA experiences an increase in the education workload due to the peak enrollment period. Fall enrollment peaked in mid-September and is now back to normal levels. During this peak influx of claims, our processors maintained our 2022 timeliness standards for an average processing time of 24 days for a new claim and 12 days for a re-enrollment.

On October 12, 2022, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), published a Proposed Rule, “85/15 Rule Calculations, Waiver Criteria, and Reports”, through a Federal Register Notice. The Notice is 87 FR 61544. To leave comments, please use the following link: https://www.regulations.gov/document/VA-2022-VBA-0022-0001.The comment period is open until December 12, 2022.

This photo* is of Barnard College Campus taken some time between 1918-1919. Students’ Hall was erected in 1916 and opened the following year on Barnard College’s campus in New York City. The building was renamed for Frederick A. P. Barnard, Columbia University’s tenth president who repeatedly advocated for women’s admission to the university. While women were barred from attending Columbia’s various colleges into the first half of the 1900s, Barnard College was founded in 1889, as an affiliated college for women.

* Photo and information source: Barnard Hall at Barnard College (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)