- [Marcie] Hello, everyone, and thank you
for joining us for Second Time Around,
the Kitchen Spoons & Combat Boots
Multimedia Educational Series.
I'm Marcie Caulfield, your State Military
OneSource consultant, and with me today is--
- [Candice] Hi, everyone.
My name Candice Bryan-Broe and I am
the Senior Family Readiness Support Assistant
for the Vermont Army National Guard.
- [Michaela] Hi, my name's Michaela LaCoss.
I'm the Family Readiness Support Assistant
for the 86th IBCT.
- [Marcie] Thank you, ladies.
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- [Michaela] And now, we're gonna be talking
about accessing education benefits,
and our special guest speakers today
are Sergeant First Class Larose and Major Williams.
Hi, gentlemen.
Thank you so much for coming.
- [Damien] Thank you for having us.
- [Brian] Thanks for having us.
- [Michaela] Awesome, so let's go ahead and get started.
Take it away!
- [Damien] My name's Sergeant Larose,
and what I'd like to talk about today,
we're gonna start out with some of the incentives
that are available to guard members.
Specifically, the big ones that we give out
are Reenlistment Bonuses, MOS Conversion Bonuses,
as well as Student Loan Repayment.
So, what we're currently offering
are two different Reenlistment Bonuses.
Folks will call 'em Reenlistment Bonuses
or Extension Bonuses.
The first one comes with a two-year obligation,
and that pays out $4,000.
It's gonna be a lump sum.
It is taxed, so you're gonna see
a little less than the $4,000.
Uncle Sam has to take his cut of his own money.
As well as a six-year bonus.
Now, the six year bonus is $20,000,
and that's gonna get paid out in three different chunks.
You're gonna get one at your original ETS,
one two years later, and then one at your five year mark.
With the student loan repayment,
we can pay back up to $50,000
in federally-backed loans, which is huge.
Some of these loans I see coming across my desk
are as much as my mortgage.
So, being able to basically be forgiven
for 50,000 of that is huge.
It does come with a six-year enlistment or extension.
There are requirements behind it.
Obviously, for both of these types of incentives
you have to be in good standing,
you have to remain in good standing.
You know, you have to make sure
you're passing your height and weight, and your APFT,
as well as staying in a deployable unit,
which is an MTOE unit.
New this year, we have what's called
the MOS Conversion Bonus.
So, the 54 states and territories
have kind of come together, and we realize
that some of these less appealing MOSs,
we need to get folks in them.
So, what we're doing is we're offering people $4,000
to convert to some of these critical MOSs.
Obviously, there are requirements behind that.
It comes with a three-year obligation.
So, if you already have four or five years on your contract
and you have a bonus, whether it be the Reenlistment Bonus
or the Student Loan Repayment, you can get this, as well.
So, that's just extra money out there.
And what I didn't talk about earlier
is the Student Loan Repayment and the Reenlistment Bonus,
you can get those together.
That's huge.
So, you're looking at basically,
if you have 50 grand in student loans,
you're looking at $70,000 in incentives right there.
- [Michaela] Wow. (laughs)
Wow.
Yeah, that's not a bad incentive.
Hey, I actually had a quick question
about this MOS Conversion.
So, is this based on state?
So, I guess my question is if, say,
the Chaplain MOS was kind of like, you know,
the chaplains needed more soldiers in Vermont,
but they didn't necessarily need them in New York,
so is it different by state, or is it national?
- [Damien] That's actually a really good question.
So, what we do, we look at the density of the MOS.
So, it has to be below 90% strength for the state.
So, we have a say in what would qualify for that.
- [Michaela] Okay, cool.
Great, thank you.
Girl?
Go ahead.
- [Candice] Just for those that are listening on the line
that may not know what the acronym MOS stands for,
could you inform them, please?
- [Damien] So, an MOS,
it means Military Occupational Specialty.
It's what your job is in the military.
- [Candice] Great.
- [Damien] In the Army, it's usually two numbers,
followed by a letter.
- [Candice] Wonderful, thank you.
- [Damien] So, I'm not gonna really touch on this one
because it's not my specialty, and it changes constantly.
But we also have chaplain
and health professional incentives available.
If you want more information on that,
I would direct you towards Staff Sergeant Caballero,
and her number's 802-338-3426.
She can answer those questions.
Like I said, that's always changing.
The officer world, especially the military side,
is a little complicated.
(laughing)
But I know specifically, I can say we have paid
up to $200,000 in Student Loan Repayment
for medical doctors.
New this year, and this is pretty big,
I've seen three of these already,
are 79T AGR Extension Bonuses.
So, what a 79T is that's one of our recruiters.
It's a high stress job, and I think we finally realized
that we need to kinda keep
some of these people in and recruiting,
so we're giving them up to $12,000
for a three-year commitment, staying onboard as a recruiter.
It's the same requirements as the other bonuses.
Obviously, you can't have any adverse action against you.
You have to, as I mentioned, you have to stay
as a productive recruiter for those three years.
But that's huge, and if we're giving
AGR extensions for recruiters,
I would speculate we might see AGR extension bonuses
and technician bonuses in the near future
because currently, with the exception of 79Ts,
AGRs and technicians are not allowed to get any bonuses.
- [Marcie] Sergeant Larose, what are some common things
that you've seen that make people ineligible?
- [Damien] So, eligibility issues are
what I deal with the most.
They require a lot of work, and it's usually
no fault of the soldier.
A lot of the times, documents get signed.
We are all guilty of it.
You just see the signature block and you sign
without reading the end user agreement,
or clicking on the acknowledgement button on a website.
It's really important for people to read through
the eight page addendums.
It literally spells out line-by-line
what all the requirements for your bonus
for your incentive are.
The big ones I see are height/weight failures.
You can't have two consecutive,
and APFT failures, you can't have two consecutive.
So, we need to, as leaders,
we need to safeguard our soldiers.
If a soldier has always been right on the bubble
of passing height and weight, or APFT,
I would as a recruiter or retention NCO
kinda say, hey, let's give this one-year extension
and see if you can maintain your height and weight
and APFT for a year, and then next year,
there's gonna be incentives out there.
We'll extend you for the two or the six years,
that way you don't have to risk
getting your bonus taken away.
- [Michaela] And the APFT,
that's the physical fitness test--
- [Damien] Yes, that's the Army Physical Fitness Test.
Absolutely-
- [Michaela] Thank you.
- [Damien] I keep speaking in acronyms.
I apologize.
The other thing, and this is through
no fault of the soldiers is units will move.
On paper, they'll move soldiers around,
and if people get moved in a wrong spot,
it can send up a flag and basically,
I get an email that says this person's ineligible right now
and it takes a bunch of work to correct that problem.
So, on the backend, on the HR side,
we need to do our due diligence where we're putting people.
- [Brian] Okay, this is Major Williams.
I'm the Education Service Officer
for the Vermont Army National Guard.
I'm gonna start off talking about Chapter 1606
of the Montgomery GI Bill.
Now, this is called the Select Reserve GI Bill.
A lot of people don't realize there's different GI Bills.
This is what we would typically call
your traditional guardsmen GI Bill.
Basically, for eligibility, you'd have a six-year contract,
a high school diploma or GED equivalent,
and completed your individual advanced training or BOLC.
So, basically, everybody who meets this criteria
gets 36 months of the GI Bill.
Now, that's not just the 1606,
but that's any GI Bill, in most cases.
In a few cases, you'll have up to 48,
but the normal person coming in and enlisting
doing the six-year contract, they can plan on 36.
AGR members are not eligible for the Chapter 1606,
and this is, like I said,
ideal for M-day soldiers and MIL-TECHs.
It can't be used with Federal Tuition Assistance
for the same course, and I can get into that further
on the brief what that means.
What it is now for the GI Bill for the 1606
at the FY '19 rate, it's 384 per month.
That was effective of 1 October.
Like I said, they get 36 months of this payment,
and it gets paid directly to the soldier.
Unlike the Post-9/11 or the Chapter 30 GI Bill,
where the tuition gets paid to the school,
this GI Bill goes right into the soldier's bank account.
This can be also used in conjunction with the Kicker.
So, currently, under the different bonuses available,
if you have above a 24, I believe, or 25 GT score,
you'd be eligible for a kicker, as well.
- [Damien] In terms of what you scored
on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery--
- [Brian] It's ASVAB Test.
- [Damien] Which is ASVAB.
- [Brian] Yeah.
- [Damien] Coming in the door,
you have to score above a 50 to qualify for the--
- [Michaela] 50, 5-0.
- [Damien] 50, 5-0, yes.
- [Michaela] Great.
- [Brian] Okay, so what I was saying,
it goes in conjunction with the 1606.
So, you would get that 384, and then currently,
it's an additional $350 that would go towards the soldier.
Now, Sergeant Larose and I, when we council people,
we find out what their intent is for the military.
If they're just doing their six years
and they're getting out, go right ahead.
Use your GI Bill, your 1606.
That's an additional stipend pay that you get
while you're going to school.
That's pretty good, 384 and another 350.
But if they plan on making a career out of the military,
I encourage them to save their GI Bill,
and we'll go into more of that further in the brief,
but I can tell you when it looks at the different values
for this GI Bill, the 1606,
compared to the Post-9/11 GI Bill,
you'll see that it's quite substantial.
So, we'll get into state tuition, but like I said,
FTA must be used with this GI Bill,
and state tuition does not, the new state tuition bill.
Moving on, talking about the Post-9/11 GI Bill,
it's considered Chapter 33, Title 38, USC.
Basically, this is for your guard soldiers
who deploy or go on Title 10 orders.
Title 10, if you're not familiar with it,
is active duty orders.
There is Title 32, which is active duty,
but that would be considered like ADOS, or AGR.
AGR is eligible for the Post-9/11.
Basically what they were saying is
if our active duty counterparts on Title 10 get it,
why shouldn't our AGR since they're full-time, as well?
So, that's why they included the Title 32 AGR.
A lot of questions I get before I get into this
is my ADOS time, this is my active duty time
on Active Duty Operational Support, which is ADOS,
that's basically when you come in and support,
or let's say you go to a school on Title 32
for active duty for training, unfortunately,
as things stand now that is not considered eligible service.
A lot of people come at me and they get pretty sad
when I tell them their three years of ADOS
didn't count towards the Post-9/11.
To get eligible for the Post-9/11
you need to at least serve 90 days or more
on a qualifying service.
Now, I just talked about
what is considered qualifying service.
It keeps changing.
There's a lot of lobbying in Washington
to support our guard and reservists,
giving them more eligible time towards the Post-9/11.
But as it stands now, there's only certain codes.
They added a bunch of Title 10 codes for people
who were in the guard go to National Guard Bureau,
or anything like that on Title 10 orders.
They're including that now.
So, 30 continuous days.
It's important you have to have an honorable discharge.
So, the Veterans Affairs Office is the ones
who actually determine what eligible service is.
They look at your DD214s and they determine
by what the code is on the orders,
and it says that right in the remarks block
of the DD214 what order you were under at that time,
and they look at that and then they decide
if those days are considered qualifying service
for the Post-9/11.
Here at the Education Office, we can give people an idea
of what tier they're at, but ultimately,
the Veterans Affairs Office is the one
who makes the final decision.
And you can go to www.vets.gov to go in
and you can check your eligibility.
If you're looking at the payment tier/percentage,
you can see the different percentages
and the days of qualifying service and put you at what tier.
Now, that tier determines, if you go to the next slide,
the Post-9/11 GI Bill, US Chapter 33,
right now currently, under FY '19,
they'll pay up to $23,671 at the in-state rate
for foreign or private school.
So, based on your tier, that determines
what percentage they'll pay.
So, if you're at the 50% tier, or what have you,
then they'll pay 50% of that tuition,
or up to 50% of that tuition rate.
At the 100%, they'll pay $1,000 for books.
So obviously, at 50% they pay 500,
and they also pay BAH, which are basic housing allowance
based on the ZIP code of the school.
The E-5 rate, which is a sergeant, they'll pay
your tier rate of that towards a living expense.
One caveat to that is a lot of people
don't realize that the service member gets to decide
where that housing allowance money gets direct deposited.
It doesn't go directly to the school.
So, I mean, if they're living at home
and they're attending, let's say, UVM,
they still will get that UVM BAH,
but the service member, if they transfer their benefit,
(mumbling) to save that money for another person,
or just keep it.
But for online classes, they pay 25.
If a service member is AGR and going to school,
they're already collecting BAH, so they won't get it twice.
- [Damien] Or active duty.
- [Brian] Or active duty.
Other things people should know about the Post-9/11 GI Bill,
there is a delimination date.
Within the last couple of years
they changed it so if you had qualifying service
on 1 January 2013,
after, you have the Forever GI Bill.
That means that there's no date that it expires.
If you had it prior to 1 January 2013, you have 15 years.
And now, those dates go for
both the service member and the spouse.
So, if somebody had a child
and they had it prior to 1 January 2013,
they may only by 16 or something like that
when that would expire.
So, what they gave is people the opportunity
at 26 years old to use the benefit for children.
So, like I said, they're after 1 January 2013,
there's no expiration date.
That's for them and the spouse.
It's 26 for children.
- [Michaela] Major Williams, just to go back a little bit,
I had a question about the BAH.
I just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.
So, let's say I decided to go to the University of Vermont,
UVM, which is of course, in Chittenden County,
but I'm living say, in Rutland County,
would I be getting the Rutland County BAH,
or would I be getting the Chittenden County BAH?
- [Brian] You would be getting the BAH
based on the ZIP code of the school.
So, in this case, it would be UVM,
and it would be the E-5 with dependents BAH.
Like we said, that constantly changes.
You can always check DFAS website
to see what those rates are,
and you can type in the ZIP code of the school
and find out what you'll be getting.
- [Michaela] So, DFAS, D-F-A-S,
and that's online, right?
- [Brian] Yes.
- [Michaela] Okay, awesome.
- [Brian] The other good question
that people give me is satellite schools.
If you're attending, let's say there's a satellite location,
say, that UVM has a campus in Rutland,
but UVM is based out of Burlington,
it's based on where that satellite school's located.
That happens a lot.
A lot of people want that Boston BAH,
and their school's outside of Boston,
so they get the lesser of the BAH.
- [Michaela] Major Williams, what about online schools?
- [Brian] Online schools is a flat rate.
Let me just go back.
It's currently 825 for online classes,
and you have to be a full-time student to get that rate.
- [Michaela] What would be considered full-time?
15 credits?
- [Brian] Over 12 credits.
- [Michaela] 12 credits. Okay.
- [Brian] All right, moving on.
We'll talk about the other GI Bill
that sometimes we encounter here
in the Vermont Army National Guard
is the Active Duty, Chapter 30.
We don't see this very often, but a lot of the times,
it's people who were prior active duty,
or even AGR have the opportunity to buy-in to a GI Bill.
It's a $1,200 buy-in and you can plus up.
And basically, if you have three-plus years
of qualifying service, it's 1,994,
and over two the three it's,
between two to three it's 1,595.20.
- [Michaela] So, 1,994, $1,994.
- [Brian] Yes, sorry.
- [Michaela] Awesome. (laughs)
I was just like, when you said 1,994,
I was like, what?
$19,000!
That's amazing.
But no, it's 1,994.
- [Brian] Yes, and you can always plus this up,
and a lot of people don't realize
'cause if you want to go into the Post-9/11 GI Bill
you have to give up Chapter 30.
So, when you give up Chapter 30,
that $1,200 you will get back from the VA
once you exhaust your Post-9/11.
A lot of people don't realize that,
but you can go in and talk to the VA,
submit a question, and they'll allow you to get
that $1,200 back once Chapter 33's exhausted.
So, talking about Transfer of Education Benefits,
this is directly related to the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
This is a question I get a lot from family members,
not just service members, because it's the only GI Bill
that you can transfer to the dependent, and we call it TEB,
Transfer of Education Benefits.
There's a legislation on the table
to make this more restrictive,
which I'll talk about in a few minutes.
But basically, a soldier who is eligible
for the Post-9/11 and has a spouse or dependents
that is in the DEERS system,
and don't ask me what DEERS stands for (laughs),
but it's the system that when you have a family member
you go to the ID card office and you enter them.
They have your birth certificate and everything like that.
So, they have to show up in the military system
as being a direct dependent.
You have to have six years of service,
and four years until your ETS.
So, you actually have to extend,
and I'll talk about that in the few minutes.
So, if you don't have four years to your ETS,
you can always submit a transfer request,
and it goes into a holding pattern until you extend.
So basically, if you're a 36 month soldier,
you can break up that 36 months amongst your dependents.
And I can talk about what I council people is
I always tell people to give each dependent one month
because while you're in you can add them,
and while you're qualifying you can always add them.
But once you're out of the military,
you cannot add them, but you can adjust months
if you've already given them one month.
So it's basically enter them in while you're in,
and then once you get out
you can shuffle around those 36 months.
So, if you have 48 months, you have 48 months
to move around, and how you get 48 months,
which I haven't really talked about,
is if you were eligible for three GI Bill at once,
if you bought in a Chapter 30,
became eligible for Post-9/11,
and then became an M-DAY soldier and had 1606,
you'd be eligible for the 48 months.
So, there's a few people who have that.
So, the Transfer of Education Benefits,
we kinda talked about the delimination period
and that January 1 date
that still follows if you transfer.
If the spouse shares the same deliminating date
as the soldier, so if it's qualifying service
pre or post-January 1st, 2013.
Talked about the housing allowance.
If the spouse is not AGR, but one of the members is AGR
and the spouse is not, they still won't get the BAH
because they're still collecting BAH
from that one service member.
Like I said, soldiers have the age of 26...
Beneficiaries share the same percentage
as the tier of the soldier.
So, if the soldier was 100% tier,
the family members would get 100%.
- [Damien] What happens in July of this year?
- [Brian] Yes, July.
Kinda talked about it in the beginning,
is they're actually looking at making it so
if you have over 16 years of service you will not
be eligible to transfer your education benefits.
They're doing that 'cause if you'll be at your 20,
and I should stress that the military looks at this
as a retention tool, not a benefit.
So, I mean, this is a way of trying to keep soldiers in.
And when we brief at crossroads,
or should I say Sergeant Larose briefs at crossroads,
he hits that hard 'cause a lot of people
don't realize that you can't transfer once you're out,
and they haven't given their one month,
and they maybe have less than a year to their ETS.
So, it really hit it hard that if you don't,
if you haven't transferred and you're not under those,
have four years 'til your ETS, you will not be able to.
And that's quite a bit of money to throw out the door.
We get a lot of people who come in or call up
who have been out of the military for five, six years,
and they're like, oh, my kid's ready to go to college.
I'm ready to transfer my benefits,
and I have to tell them that they won't be able to.
And they're getting more and more restrictive about it.
They used to be if it was a medical discharge
or something like that, they would make exceptions,
but now they're being like, if you don't meet
that obligation, then you won't be eligible to transfer.
They've even gone to the point
where the transfer went through and the soldier
couldn't make that four year commitment,
and they recouped the service member.
So--
- [Damien] Touching on that, another thing we see,
'cause this is all done online,
people will just think by clicking,
all right, I'm transferring my benefit
to my wife and my kid, a month each, or whatever,
and if they don't have that extension time,
that four-year obligation, it'll go into a 70 day
holding period in the system,
and then it will just null and void it
if they haven't actually extended, and I have run into that.
I have run into people who thought they did it,
and it kicked it back, and they are without the benefit.
- [Brian] Yeah, and so it's really important
when you're counseling soldiers when they become eligible,
and I know they hit this at the MOB Station,
but most people get homeitis right when they're getting
out of MOB and they're not really listening.
They talk about, okay, you just deployed.
You're now at the 60% tier.
You did one year overseas,
and you're eligible for a Post-9/11.
They just don't listen, and they get to that point
where they're getting out and it's too late.
So, I really like to stress, it's a waste of money.
And I can tell you first-hand,
my father was eligible for Post-9/11.
He didn't transfer it to me or my brothers,
and it goes away next year.
It's never been used.
So, I mean, it happens.
So, the next slide, I just want to talk about
how to go about transferring.
I mean, you can contact the Education Office.
It takes a few minutes to do it.
You need to have a CAC reader.
At most time, you can have a DFAS login to get in.
It's on milconnect.
Just go to Google, or whatever search engine you use,
type in milconnect, pops up.
It's on the left-hand side of the screen.
It says transfer my education benefits.
Everybody in DEERS will show up,
and then you can manipulate the months as you see fit.
And then you'll have to click some boxes
saying that you understand
that you're transferring 30 to 33, what have you.
So, it's real simple.
When people have children, the first thing they do
after they get 'em in DEERS is contact me
and transfer that benefit.
- [Michaela] Major Williams,
how do months translate into semesters in school?
- [Brian] Okay, so a lot of people are like,
oh, why do I get 36 months?
It takes four years to graduate.
Semesters are only nine months each,
so if you take nine, and so that's about your 36 months.
So, a lot of people think, oh, I'm getting BAH
for the entire year.
You're really only getting it for nine months.
So, if they have an apartment at UVM and once school's out
that housing allowance won't be coming for those
if they stay there during the summer.
So, just keep in mind when you're doing
your financial planning for going to school,
or your kids going to school.
Just gotta understand that that's not a full year's
housing allowance, and tuition, and books.
So, it's a good question, and a lot of people
fall into that trap and they don't understand
the 36 month thing.
Okay, so next, we're gonna talk about a program
that nobody really seems to know about,
and we try to get the word out.
It's basically free money to go to school.
It's called Federal Tuition Assistance.
Unlike our Air Guard friends, only AGR have it.
Everybody in the Army Guard has this benefit.
Basically, they have to complete AIT or BOLC.
They actually used to have to wait a year.
That just got waived within the last year,
so you could use it right after completing AIT.
There's different tiers that if you want to use it
depending on which degree you're going after,
you have to complete Captains Career Course
if you're going for a master's.
If you're going for a master's and you're enlisted,
you have to complete ALC.
Or if you're a warrant, you need to complete
Warrant Office Advanced Course to get that master's degree.
But if you're searching it for an undergrad degree,
it's $250 per semester hour,
and up to 16 semester hours a fiscal year.
So, this money, a lot of people
don't realize it's out there.
You just have to go to GoArmyEd.
When I mentioned the 1606, when I said
you can't use it for the same course,
if you want to use FTA and 1606,
you have to use all of your FTA first.
So, when you're writing down your courses
on GoArmyEd on FTA, and you've put them down
for your 1606, it won't go through.
So, like I said, you can only use FTA or 1606.
- [Michaela] Can you use FTA first, and then use 1606?
Or like, once you've used one, you can't use the other?
- [Brian] Well, you have up to 16 semester hours to use it.
So, if you didn't want to use FTA,
you go ahead and use your GI Bill.
But you're getting that 384 a month.
If you want to use both, I mean,
you couldn't put them down for the same course.
So, if you wanted to split your courses in half
and do as half FTA, half 1606,
you would only get a prorated version of that 1606 amount
because they're looking at full-time as over 12 credits
to get that full amount.
So, I mentioned that it's 250 per semester
up to 16 a fiscal year.
Lifetime of 130 undergraduate semesters
for a master's degree,
and you get 39 graduate semester hours.
Our office doesn't really manage the FTA program.
That would be actually John Berube.
He actually is located in New Hampshire.
He does Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
You can contact our office.
We can direct you.
He's very user-friendly.
Answers emails and voice messages like that day,
so if you have any questions, I encourage you
to call John about FTA.
And FTA's very important.
I'll get into it in a second
about our new state tuition policy
because when the bill was written
it requires you to use FTA to be able to use the program.
- [Damien] One good thing about the FTA,
especially for people in my situation,
if you're not looking to go to school full-time
and you just want to plug away at your degree,
I just got accepted to Champlain
through their truED program.
So, what Champlain College does is they prorate
down to the 250 per semester hour.
So, I can use my FTA and still be full-time employed
and plug away at my degree, which is super handy.
- [Brian] There's schools out there,
and I'm not gonna plug any individual college by itself,
but there are colleges out there that are military-friendly
that actually make the credit rate
the same rate as FTA 250.
So, they recognize how much they're paying,
so literally could go to school for free
just using this program.
- [Michaela] Major Williams, I mean,
this is a lot of information we're covering.
If somebody's just not sure what's the best avenue for them,
can they just give you a call and set up
a scheduled time to connect with you,
and you could say what the options are?
- [Brian] Yeah, they can contact the Education Office.
Set up an appointment or I can talk to them
over the phone and say, okay, what are your goals?
And I will point them in the direction that's best for them.
Do they want to be online?
Do they want to sit in a campus
or go to a campus and sit in class?
There's different routes, and some people
don't want to use their state tuition.
Maybe they just want to use FTA 'cause state tuition
comes with an obligation.
So, sometimes FTA is more user-friendly
than the state tuition 'cause they don't want to increase
their service obligation.
So, I mean, we're about to talk about the state tuition
and how it ties together and what the obligation is.
First thing I want to talk about is something
that a lot of people don't realize,
and this has just passed within the last year, 2018,
where the governor signed a bill
saying that some of the military occupational specialties
will relate to a state certificate or a licensing program.
You can see in front of you the different specialties,
but this is pretty huge because you got
your military training and it could equate to a job
on the civilian side.
- [Marcie] So, this is basically,
so for those who are following along on our slides,
we're on the VTARNG State Licensing Program slide.
Basically, under the military occupational specialties,
there's 68W, or 66H.
Those are the MOSs that you were talking about
at the beginning of the presentation, correct?
- [Brian] Correct.
- [Marcie] And how they would correlate
to a certificate in basically, the civilian world, correct?
- [Brian] Mm-hmm.
- [Marcie] Awesome.
So, for example, a 68W would correlate
to a licensed nursing assistant.
Or a 66H would correlate to a registered nurse.
Am I reading that correctly?
- [Brian] Yes, that's absolutely right.
- [Marcie] Okay, great.
- [Brian] That was just new as of last year,
and a lot of people are excited about it.
It gives them opportunity for civilian employment
outside the guard.
- [Marcie] And so, if someone wanted to find out,
like is this a complete list that we have
on this slide here, or if they wanted to find out more
would they contact your office?
- [Damien] As of now, this is the complete list,
but we're trying to add some.
- [Marcie] So, for those of you
who have not downloaded the slide deck,
there is the complete list of these in the slide deck.
- [Michaela] And I think there's especially,
you mentioned registered nurses out there,
but I also see 88M as commercial driver's license.
That's a huge, popular entity within our military community.
- [Damien] So, with the 88M,
which it's a wheeled vehicle operator,
they can get their CDL.
They still have to take the Vermont test,
but it waives the 2,000 hours
that they'd required to be under supervision.
- [Michaela] So, it's basically go to the DMV--
- [Damien] And just take the test.
- [Michaela] And do the test, the test that they require,
and there's no extra hours that they have to put in.
That's awesome.
- [Marcie] That's huge.
- [Brian] Okay.
Other programs that we offer in Vermont
for our service members is the Buxton Scholarship.
Now, this program is not utilized to its full potential.
This current semester in the spring,
I did award all of 'em, but I was actually
able to dip in some of the Air Guard ones
'cause they only used three of the 48
that are given to award out.
So, I mean, this is Saint Michaels College,
which is right next to Camp Johnson in Colchester,
which is a very, very good college.
And I am able to let, so far, everybody who's asked
has gotten the credits they want.
I mean, it could get more competitive in the future,
but I'm able to award 48 credits a semester
to go to this college, and that's not just for an undergrad,
that's for a graduate degree, as well.
So, the dates are down there
when I'm looking for the applications.
It's a pretty simple application process.
A letter saying why you think you should be a recipient
of this award, and I need your commander's endorsement,
and then just how many credits you're taking
and how many you want.
And basically, if you're a guard member,
you could end up going to Saint Michaels College for free,
and it's not a cheap college, either.
It's a private college.
(mumbling)
(laughing)
- [Damien] We have a couple soldiers who are going.
- [Brian] I can think of a couple off the top of my head
that have already graduated that used the Buxton
for all four years, and all they had to pay
was their room and board, so.
I mean, this is a very good program.
It's underutilized.
If you want to know more about this program,
I encourage you to contact the Education Office
and we can answer any questions about that.
I do caveat that you have to be accepted
into the college first before I can award you credits, so.
- [Michaela] So, they can't come and be like,
oh, hey, we want a letter to do this Buxton Scholarship,
and like not actually have even applied to the college yet.
- [Brian] Exactly.
- [Michaela] Okay. (laughs)
- [Brian] I try to give everybody (mumbling).
I sit down with my boss and Sergeant Larose
and we go through the packets and we try to be fair.
But like I've said, we've had more than enough credits
to award everybody what they want.
- [Michaela] So, is this primarily for service members?
- [Brian] Yes, it's not for dependents.
I've had that question, too,
or somebody who said I was in the Vermont Guard at one time.
They have to be actively an active member.
Yeah.
- [Damien] That's actually a good question.
This doesn't come with any service obligation.
At the time of registering for your classes
you have to be wearing the uniform.
So, if your ETS is in two weeks after the semester starts--
- [Michaela] Then that's fine?
- [Damien] You're good.
- [Michaela] Wow, that's--
- [Damien] You won't be able to apply
in the future, but yeah.
- [Brian] Next thing that our office offers
is we do testing.
This is primarily military testing.
So, if somebody scored, and we mentioned ASVAB earlier,
if they're unhappy with their score
because you have to score a certain level
to hold different MOSs in the military,
and they want to go in and re-class,
or try to either go to warrant officer,
become an officer, or even come a recruiter,
you need to have a certain GT score.
We offer that test.
It's Armed Forces Classification Test.
I do stress to people when they take it
that if you score lower than you did on your first attempt,
you could lose your MOS.
So, the last score is the one that we go by.
- [Michaela] So study, is basically what you're saying.
- [Brian] And that's a good point.
If you want study materials, contact the Education Office.
We have links, we have books.
You can go and take practice tests online.
I would say 99% of the time, people score better.
So, it's a three-hour test and we do it right here
at Camp Johnson at the J6 building.
To schedule one of these tests,
you can contact myself, Sergeant Larose,
and what we try to do is group them together
instead of doing onesie twosies
'cause it's a three-hour test,
but we'll work with you based on your schedule.
Someone just called up who's ISTing from New Hampshire
and she only has two days a week that she can come up,
so I'm going and doing a onesie in a couple weeks.
So, just we'll work with you if travel's kind of an issue.
Other tests we offer is near and dear to my heart,
is the Selection Instrument Flight Training test.
If you want to become a pilot, you have to take this test,
and they offer that over at the flight facility.
I mean, we could give it here at the J6,
but that would be Mr. Mungeon who administers that test,
but I oversee all the testing here.
So, if you're interested in taking this test,
just let me know and we can arrange that.
Defense Language Proficiency Test.
Right now, we have only one soldier that I know of
that's in the Vermont Guard that takes this test
to get that additional language pay.
I've done it for Special Forces guys from Rutland,
and everything, so they can stay current.
But yeah, this is new as of last year.
I got the certification and passed the test
so I can administer this test.
So, this is available in Colchester, as well.
The TABE test, this is also new.
To become a warrant officer, sometimes you need to test out
or have some education, additional education in English
to be able to become a warrant officer.
You can test out of it taking the TABE test.
In the past, we've had to send people
to New Hampshire to do it, but now we are able
to do it right here in Vermont.
And also, they're called DANTES testing.
You are eligible to have discounts
taking your SAT, ACT and CLEP tests.
- [Michaela] And just to confirm, again,
those discounts are for the soldier.
- [Brian] Service member.
You have to have a military ID.
- [Michaela] Okay, and not for any dependents
or anything like that.
- [Brian] Yes.
- [Michaela] Okay.
- [Brian] All right, next thing I'd like to talk about
is the Joint Services Transcript.
So, this is basically how your military qualifications
carries over to the academic world
or the civilian world.
So, basically, this website, you go in
and you can pull up all your military training
that's been evaluated by ACE,
and they can, that's the American Council of Education,
and they go in and they validate
the different military training,
and say this is how it equates to credits in school.
So, anybody can go in who's a service member,
and with their CAC card go to the Joint Services Transcript
website and pull up their transcript and see how it equates.
If they want to send this transcript to the college,
you do it right there on the website.
You go to view my transcripts, official transcript request,
and they'll email it right to the college.
Lot of people don't know how to get to this website.
Again, contact the Education Office
and we can help you pull up and you can get an idea
of what degree, if you want to go kind of in the path
of what your military training equates to for a degree,
and the different colleges will help you with that.
Most colleges around here have a veterans rep.
They can help you look a your transcripts and be like,
well, your military training will count this much
towards a health professional,
if you have a lot of medical training.
Or for recruiters, they look at that as business,
and they help you towards a business degree.
So, you can work with a college
and they'll look at your transcripts
and help you make that determination.
The next thing I talk about is the Vermont National Guard
Tuition Benefit Program.
This is new, brand-new to us.
Basically, the history behind this is Vermont
was one of the only states,
if not the only state in New England
that didn't offer free state tuition assistance
to its guard members.
Now, you can see how this becomes an issue with recruiting
and retention when people want to serve,
they look around, and they say,
I can go to Vermont and get some money,
or I can just go over to New Hampshire
and have college completely paid for.
So, our legislature listened to us
and they awarded us this benefit.
There are some changes from the old program,
which was called NGAP.
Basically, for this new program
you cannot have a bachelor's degree.
In the past, you could have a bachelor's degree
and work towards a master's.
You cannot have a bachelor's degree.
You have to be an active member in good standing.
You have to have completed basic training,
and you have to utilize Federal Tuition Assistance.
You also have to be enrolled in the college,
training, or certificate program
leading to an undergrad degree or certificate.
Now, those certificate programs,
they have to be approved certificate programs
by either VSAC or you can actually go onto WIEMS,
which is a VA website where you can type in
the certificate program, and if it shows up
on their VSAC, we'll honor it.
You do not have to utilize this program
with the 1606 GI Bill.
Basically, it's free tuition to UVM, CCV,
Vermont Technical College,
Northern Vermont University, and Castleton.
One of the benefits about this program,
if you're enrolled in the program
and you're a out-of-state soldier
that is in the Vermont Guard,
they will give you the in-state rate at UVM,
which is about half of what it is for out-of-state.
So, I mean, the benefit there itself is huge.
So, what if you're going to a private college
that's not listed there?
Basically, they will give you what they call
a scholarship at the NVU in-state rate.
So, currently, as of this year, it's 10,486.
So, say that you're attending Norwich right now,
which is a private college, you'd have to use FTA.
So, if you're taking 16 credits, that's 4,000,
and then you would add the 10,486.
So, that's $14,486 a year for Norwich.
And in the old program, it was only 7,000.
So, it's pretty much doubled,
and our counterparts in the different schools,
the private schools said they will do their best
to match the Vermont colleges.
So, they'll go out of their way trying to help,
but you have to work with the colleges on that.
For the certificates, there'll be full funding
up to four certificate programs per the NVU rate in-state.
Now, I think it was Sergeant Larose actually, the other day
was talking about pilot's license.
And so, they will pay up to 10,486 for that certificate.
So, I mean, that's just another program.
If you don't have a bachelor's degree,
I would search these certificate programs.
So, what is the obligation for this program?
And we talked about it a little bit.
It's two years per full award.
Award varies based on the amount of credits taken,
so right now it's anything over 12 credits
would be a full year.
So, how that breaks down is if you were a freshman
and you went to college, and you're a guard member,
you would serve your obligation while going to school.
So, if you did all four years of let's say, UVM,
you would owe four more years when you're done.
So, that'd be eight years total.
Four while you're going in and drilling
while you're going to school, and then you graduate,
and then four years afterward.
For certificate programs, it's six months
per commitment per certificate.
- [Michaela] Major Williams, would you mind discussing
the application process and what it would look like?
- [Brian] Okay, so the application process
has been a trial by error kinda thing going.
Because the law, the way it's written,
we're required to use FTA.
So, FTA has to be applied for prior to the start of school.
It has to be within 90 days of the start date of the class,
but it can't be requested while you're attending.
It has to be prior to the start date.
So, there's six steps, and right now it's ever-changing.
Right now it's mostly paper
because we're just getting used to the new program.
So, basically, if you're brand-new
you've been accepted to the college.
You would apply for FTA.
Now, if you're looking at page, sorry, slide 46,
there's a flowchart.
So, in green, at the top it says the soldier's accepted
to the college, or university, or certificate program.
The first thing they would have to do is apply for FTA.
Certificate programs, you cannot apply FTA for.
That's only for graduate-seeking, higher learning.
Yeah, thank you.
All right, so you have to apply for FTA.
FTA, like we talked about, is 250 per semester hour.
So, you have to exhaust that FTA before.
And this is actually affecting a lot of our soldiers
who want to use that 1606,
and they want to use state tuition.
So, they have to forego that 1606, or exhaust it,
before they start drawing the, I'm sorry.
They have to exhaust the FTA
before they can start drawing the 1606.
So, the first thing they do is apply for FTA,
go into GoArmyEd, contact John Berube,
put your courses in within 90 days of the start date.
Even if you are not within that 90 day window,
you should know how many credits you're taking
and multiply that by 250.
And on the VSAC certification form,
you'll enter are you eligible
for any other military funded tuition assistance?
And you would put 250 times the amount
of credits you're taking.
So, if you're taking all 16, you put $4,000 down.
Then you'd have to go online.
This is coming up in the fall of 2019.
You'll be able to go online, create a VSAC account,
and apply for the unified scholarship application.
After that, you need to fill out
that VSAC certification form,
which you can either get on the portal here in Vermont,
you can request it from the education office,
or you can pick one up here at Camp Johnson.
So, you fill out that form.
It requires a commander's signature
saying that you're in good standing.
There's a document that should come with the VSAC form
saying you understand a statement of understanding
about what good standing is.
So, like if you're in the program
and you've fallen to not good standing,
if you fail a PT test, or height/weight,
or anything like that, you would be removed from the program
'cause you're no longer in good standing.
So, when you complete those forms,
that VSAC certification form
and the Service Member Statement of Understanding form,
you return it to the Education Office.
From the Education Office, I have to sign it.
I verify that you're in good standing.
I look in my systems and verify
that you're not flagged for anything.
And then from there, I give it back to VSAC.
After it goes back to VSAC, within 10 days, typically,
maybe a little bit more, you'll get a promissory note
and award letter in the mail.
Now, this is new since we made this slide,
is that award letter will actually work
to give to the college for them to let the school know
that the money is coming.
Just because there's some timing issues
with when the money is released from VSAC,
if you bring that award letter
to the veterans affairs person,
for example, David Carlson is the one at UVM,
you bring that award letter to him,
he will let the finance people know that money's coming.
You won't get a bill in the mail.
They'll let the account know.
So, from there, the promissory note.
You need to fill it out, or the soldier
will need to fill it out and return it to VSAC.
And then from there, VSAC will pay the program,
and then it's complete.
- [Michaela] So, this whole thing about this slide,
for those of you who are following at home,
or in the car, or wherever.
Hopefully you're not looking at this in the car,
but if you have the slide deck, basically, if you're looking
at the New State Tuition Assistance flowchart,
everything that's in the diamond shape, right?
That actually is specific for what the soldier needs to do.
And anything that's sort of in a rectangular shape
is something that needs to be handed off either to VSAC,
or to your commander, or to the Education Office.
So, it's a really great way for you to be tracking
sort of where you are in the process,
and basically, who's responsible for what.
- [Brain] Absolutely, yeah.
Thank you for bringing that up.
There's some things, while I have the opportunity here,
some lessons learned from what's going on now
since the program kicked off is filling out
that VSAC certification form correctly.
The FTA, a lot of people are not putting yes for that box.
We're working on changing the wording,
or changing the wording for the fall.
But it's basically, if you're in the Army,
Vermont Army National Guard, you are eligible for FTA
and need to put that in.
It's a requirement.
The only way it would not be is
if it's like a certificate program,
or if for some reason you're not eligible for FTA.
And you can ask me, you can contact the Education Office,
or you can call John Berube and ask about eligibility.
But I have to kick back that form
every time it's not put in correctly.
Other things are if they don't follow through
with applying for FTA.
So, if they're going to let's say,
UVM, again in this instance,
the way VSAC looks at it, they'll put,
say they're taking 16 credits, they put $4,000 down.
VSAC thinks it's gonna pay the remaining amount
in-state tuition, they go to school,
they don't finish applying for FTA on GoArmyEd,
now they're $4,000 short on their tuition.
Basically, what we've been directed to do,
it's on the soldier.
So, if they don't do that, then they're gonna be short
that amount of money.
So, GoArmyEd is not complicated.
John Berube, like I said, I can't say enough
good things about him.
Give him a call.
I don't think I've ever called.
Maybe twice I've called and he hasn't called back,
and it's probably 'cause he was sick. (laughs)
So, if you go to the next slide,
I would start with John Berube 'cause I just mentioned him.
He's the FTA manager.
His number's 603-225-1312.
His email, if you have it, is right below his name.
Myself, I'm the education service officer.
You can reach me at Camp Johnson at 802-338-3378.
And then Sergeant Larose, who's the incentive manager,
who talked about the different incentives in the beginning,
but he also can double as the Education Office
when I'm not there.
So, his number's 802-338-3710.
- [Marcie] Awesome.
Well, thank you.
For those who are...
I know what we talked about was sort of
very Army Guard-centric.
So, just so that anyone who's listening is aware,
there is actually a Vermont Air National Guard
contact person, and that is Master Sergeant David Diaz,
and he can be contacted at 802-660-5211.
I will say that there is some crossover.
Some of the incentives are the same, but not all of 'em,
and we just can't really speak to that at this point.
But thank you, gentlemen, so much for coming.
We really appreciate your time.
- [Michaela] Yes, thank you.
- [Marcie] It was very informative.
(people speaking over each other)
- [Brian] Pleasure. Yeah.
- [Marcie] Thank you for taking the time to listen
to our Multimedia Educational Series: Second Time Around.
And thank you to the Vermont National Guard
40th Army Band for the use of their recording studio.
We hope you found this content useful and informative.
Remember Kitchen Spoons & Combat Boots holds live webinars
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Thanks again, and we'll see you the second time around.