Nearly 250,000 veterans and service members are each paying an average of $10,000 per academic year out-of-pocket while using the GI Bill to attend a public college or university because of the changes in their educational benefits regarding residency for tuition purposes, according to the Student Veterans Advocacy Group (SVAG).
A recent report by Jason Thigpen, SVAG founder and president, claims that only 10 percent of schools in the University of North Carolina school system offered “adequate services, facilities, and resources.”
The report, titled “Analysis & Audit Of North Carolina’s UNC School System” stated that, as of August 2011, the 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2010 “detrimentally impacted thousands of veterans attending public colleges in North Carolina” resulting in “veterans with a financial burden of paying the difference between the in-state and out-of-state tuition rate.”
“Prior to this change, Veterans Affairs paid up to $17,500 in tuition per academic year, regardless of residency classification,” the report added.
Hayleigh Perez was one of the students affected by the bill. After an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army in September 2009, Perez decided to pursue her master’s degree. She and her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Jose Perez, who is currently on active duty, were relocated on a temporary recruiting assignment to Texas but they continued to pay property taxes for the home they had purchased in North Carolina.
In the midst of moving back to North Carolina in November 2011, Perez applied to the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and Fayetteville State University in the UNC school system.
Perez was accepted to both colleges but was only considered an in-state resident at Fayetteville State although she applied to both schools, meeting registration deadlines for the spring semester with the same documentation to prove in-state residency, which included a deed to her house, her voter registration information, her North Carolina driver’s license, and her husband’s orders.
