The 2008 G.I. Bill

Should start impacting continuing education operations this fall. From usnews.com:

New Benefits Help Veterans Go to College

The family plan. Under the new GI Bill passed by Congress in 2008, another generation of war veterans—and their families—will begin receiving expanded educational assistance this year. The benefits are considerable—more than some Defense Department officials, who were concerned about the possibility of U.S. troops leaving the military to take advantage of the bill, had backed. The federal government will cover tuition and fees for vets at any public university. If they choose private universities, the government will cover the equivalent of the cost of the state's most expensive public university. The law also gives a $1,000 stipend for books and a fairly hefty monthly grant for room and board, equal to the military's housing allowance. Perhaps most striking, troops can transfer these benefits to their spouses and children, a measure that had been proposed by World War II widows—and promptly rejected by Congress.

About 100,000 student vets and their families are expected to take part in the program this school year. They will be further aided because some 575 private universities have joined what's known as the Yellow Ribbon program, in which the institutions have agreed to offer grants that will cover the difference between their own pricier tuition and that of state schools. To encourage schools to sign up, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will pick up half of the cost of the program.

But despite these benefits, some hurdles to student veterans remain. The cost of attending even the priciest public universities in some states is so low that vets will qualify for little federal reimbursement if they choose to attend the far more expensive private schools.

And the recession has reduced the endowments and income of some colleges to such an extent that they now are not able to make up the difference in grants or take part in programs like Yellow Ribbon.

The legislation also has some puzzling loopholes. Thousands of National Guard members who have served on active duty for years, for example, will not be eligible because they were called to service under Title 32, a measure that governs response to domestic emergencies or homeland-security missions. Congressional officials attribute such oversights to hurried negotiations in the run-up to last year's vote on the bill, and defense officials say that they plan to offer a legislative fix in the 2011 budget.