VETERAN STUDENTS IN POVERTY

By C.C. Nicholson

Everyone knows of the rampant homelessness plaguing veterans upon separation from service. Everyone knows there is a problem with veterans receiving healthcare. You may even know about the two year waitlist for prosthesis for servicemen and women who have sacrificed their bodies in war zones. But there is another battle for veterans you may not be aware of; poverty.

What does homelessness, healthcare and poverty have in common? The Department of Veterans Affairs.

Servicemen and women from every branch of our military are fighting an economic battle against The Veterans Affairs Administration upon separation from service to this country. Not every Sailor, Solider, Marine or Airman came home with purple hearts and PTSD. Many patriots who headed the call to duty for our country enlisted, served four years or more, but less than twenty, and made a choice to honorably discharge and rejoin civilian life back home with you.

To each his or her own reason, some wanting to start a family, some returning home to care for and support parents and loved ones, some simply decided they are ready for the next phase of their life and chose educations; to better themselves and fortify their future as hardworking contributing members of society in a variable ocean of career fields.

Transitioning back to civilian life is challenging for every veteran regardless of service time experience. The process of re-socialization occurs twice for military members. The first time is upon induction into the military, eroding identities and independence so that they can cohesively operate as soldiers, sailors, marines & airmen within their respective branches. The second time is a reverse process, the return to society after military discharge in which each veteran makes a systematic attempt to re-build themselves in civilian life.

More than one million military veterans have enrolled in colleges across the country. From four year universities to community colleges and trade schools each veteran is attempting to create a better life for themselves and their families. Here is the problem….

During basic training, for every branch, servicemen and women are given the opportunity to select their G.I. Bill plan. This is a binding contract between the federal government and the member guaranteeing a set amount to pay for college education, books, tuition, and vocational rehabilitation. In other words, they earned it. They all signed on the dotted line, wore the uniform, trained hard, obeyed orders for x amount of years and earned those G.I. contracts they were promised.

Currently, right here in Central Texas there are veteran students actively enrolled in schools, going to class every day and going into debt consequently due to neglect by the VA forcing vets to take additional private student loans. Why do vets take out student loans if their G.I. Bill covers their tuition, books and fees? Because The Department of Veteran Affairs does NOT pay the schools or the veterans on time.

Imagine working every day for six weeks or more and not getting your paycheck. If you did not get paid on time you would not go to work until you did, right? Now, ask yourself how would you afford to live while not getting paid?

Most veteran students take the additional student loans (which they too have to repay with interest on a set schedule like everyone else) to pay their schools because the VA without liability is incapable of paying out education benefits on time resulting in potential dismissal from programs.

The way it is supposed to work is: veteran brings G.I. Bill eligibility letter to school of choice, enrolls in school, school regularly submits certified attendance report to the VA, the VA is “supposed” to pay school, any and all optional additional private loans are remitted to student covering living expenses during full time attendance.

How it actually works: veteran waits a year to receive eligibility letter due to backlogged claims and ridiculously long “processing time”, veteran takes letter to school of choice and enrolls, school submits certified attendance report to the VA and student, VA takes an average of 125 days to pay out benefits across the board, student is threatened with being dropped from their program every six weeks. Student then takes additional private loans to cover the costs of their program while waiting for the VA to pay school, student relies on private loans to pay rent, utilities, gas and food while attending full time which schools will not release to student until the VA has paid out veterans benefits. In summary all veteran money whether earned benefit or private loan is withheld from the veteran until the VA does its job.

So how do veterans provide for themselves and their families while waiting for the VA to get to them? In desperation many turn to payday loan stores which devour their credit scores preventing them from their next goal of home ownership; borrowing from family members promising to pay it back with the next VA check that is coming causing strained personal relationships or even by selling any and all personal possessions from engagement rings, TV’s, furniture, tools, to books and DVD’s that might fetch five dollars apiece just for cash to buy gas to get them to school, or food or diapers and formula for their kids. This is NOT an exaggeration.

Right here in Central Texas from San Antonio to Austin veteran students and their families are getting evicted, living on couches, separating from one another to live with friends or families who have just enough room for one or the other. Utilities get shut off regularly, cars get repossessed in turn ending their student careers from lack of transportation to get to class and many have no choice but to apply for WIC or Food Stamps despite passionate self-reliance moral values strengthened by military service.

In theory veteran students should be financially stable with black and white dated payment schedules from the VA to the schools and the schools to the veterans. The truth is no matter how many black and white contracts with payment dates the veteran has the only words a Veteran Affairs representative will tell you is “you will get it when you get it” or “it’s processing”.

In the end it is veterans who pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars in late fees on their cars, rent, utilities, bank accounts, credit cards and bounced checks all because The Department of Veterans Affairs ‘will get to it when they get to it’. It is the veterans and their families that suffer the sickening stress of not knowing when they will get paid again, how they are going to make it through a week, or beg and grovel for mercy from their landlords and creditors.

One inevitable choice eventually presents itself to almost every veteran student, sometimes several times over…”Should I drop out and work for minimum wage/multiple jobs to make ends meet or hang on a little longer to finish school for a real career?”

By the time vets receive their checks, all loan money they are obligated to repay with interest, is already spent, going to pay bills that are three months behind and then they’re back to zero without ever achieving the slightest means of stability during their re-entry into civilian life. This struggle can go on for years depending on how vigilant a veteran is about their education. This negligence of Veterans Affairs is the leading cause of college drop-outs among vets and a huge contributing factor towards homelessness. And without any point of contact or advocates for veteran students they are forgotten and assumed to be alright while defining what it means to be in poverty.

Veterans you are not alone. You are not the only one going through this. The Department of Veterans Affairs is incompetent in their mission to help and support vets in every category. Share your voice, your story, your needs StudentVetsUnited@SMCorridorNews.com and hold The Department of Veterans Affairs accountable for their failure to honor your service. What will it take to get VA reform and Who is up to do the job?