VA Tuition Assistance Top-Up Program

Today I’m going to talk about the Veteran’s Administration’s Tuition Assistance Top-Up program. This program can help you cover the cost of tuition if Tuition Assistance alone doesn’t fully cover costs. That means the Top-Up program can help you save money while earning your degree, when you may need it most.

As with unfortunately too many things related to military personal finance, finding information online is surprisingly difficult. If I had to write this post based entirely on what I found online, it wouldn’t be very useful. Luckily several people volunteered to share their own experiences with the Top-Up program, so I’m including that today. Thanks very much to everybody who agreed to write up what they knew and experienced!

Tuition Assistance Overview

As you may know, military members can use Tuition Assistance to pay for voluntary off-duty education. Each service runs their Tuition Assistance program separately; eligibility and execution may differ:

• The Army Tuition Assistance program is through GoArmyEd
• The Navy uses the Navy College Program site
• USMC runs through the Marine Corps Community Services (notice you can change your location at the top of the screen) to Navy MyEducation
• The Air Force applies through the Virtual Education Center
• Coast Guard also uses Navy MyEducation, but I’d start at the FORCECOM site which lets you choose from topics to decide where to go

Note that active duty members are currently authorized to use TA in all services, but Reserve/Guard eligibility depends on service.

Tuition Assistance is great, but may not cover all of your expenses. The current limit is $250/semester credit hour ($166/hour if using quarter hours) and $4500/fiscal year. All services allow TA to cover tuition, but fee coverage varies. While Congress built it so that it can cover 100% of tuition and fees, the reality is it won’t cover 100% in many cases simply because college is so expensive these days. That’s where the Top-up program comes in.

Veteran’s Administration Tuition Assistance Top-Up

The intent of Top-Up is to cover more of the cost of your college education, up to the full cost, for up to 36 months of usage. To be eligible for Top-Up, you must be eligible for either Montgomery GI Bill or Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. You also have to be using Tuition Assistance – that’s what it is “topping up” – so you have to be approved for TA, too. You can use the links in the previous section to verify your eligibility, but remember that your supervisor also has to approve you. Some reasons supervisors might deny you for TA include being in upgrade training or an upcoming PCS.

If you’re using the Montgomery GI Bill, Top-Up will pay the difference between the DoD payment and the total cost of the course. If you’re using the Post-9/11 GI Bill, you can get the difference between the DoD payment and the approved maximum tuition and fees.

Using Top-Up will reduce your GI Bill benefits, so it’s important that you understand this trade off and decide when it is more beneficial. For instance, if you want to get a Bachelor’s degree now using in-state tuition at a public state university, it might not cost much and you will have a paycheck coming in. Compare that to the possibility of going to school full time when you leave the military, maybe pursuing a more expensive degree at a private university and not having an income outside of the GI Bill. That’s the kind of situation where saving your GI Bill benefit might make sense, so choose wisely. The Veteran’s Administration recommends using the GI Bill Comparison Tool to help make that choice.

To apply for the Top-Up program, visit the VA website. There you will find contact information and help to apply for education benefits. Note that you may need to speak with the VA Certifying Official at your college (the Army website specifies this as the first stop).

You can find some additional information on the Military.com website, including Frequently Asked Questions. I also recommend reading below to see what Military Dollar readers had to say!

Readers Weigh In With Top-Up Program Experiences

Kim O. used Tuition Assistance Top-Up with the Montgomery GI Bill

In addition to the MGIB/Post 911 benefits, active duty are also entitled to 36 months of TA-Top-Up (TATU).  I used it for a few engineering calculus classes at RIT.  To get started, I had to apply for VA educational benefits.  Once I received the certificate of eligibility, I was able to register for classes using the normal Tuition Assistance process.  At the time in 2002, each class was $1072.  TA paid $500 of that and TATU paid the remaining balance of $572.  Each class was 10 weeks long and used about 2 months and 8 days of TATU benefits and 27 days of MGIB benefits.

After each award, the VA sends you a letter explaining how much you’ve used and how much you have remaining.  I still have all of the original paperwork.  This was the only time I used my MGIB benefits as TA was enough for the remainder of my degree.  Later I converted to the Post 9/11 GI Bill and transferred the remaining 33 months to my daughter who graduated from college debt free.  It was a simple process.

You can apply for VA education benefits at this website.

J.S. reviews his Top-Up experience

MGIB Top-Up: It was a while back, but I recall it was pretty easy. I think on my TA application I had to indicate that I would be using Top-Up. IIRC, there was a form I had to get certified by the VA so the school would accept me and bill the VA directly for the difference. I had MGIB and it was a dollar for dollar use of my benefit. I believe under the Post-9/11 it uses based on time so you may be getting less out of it with Top-Up.

Once I finished the TA side of things I believe I had to send in the bill from the school showing the balance in order to get VA to send them money. One problem that popped up was if the VA didn’t send in the Top-Up payment in time I would be dropped from my classes. Once that happened and the class was full before it got resolved and I had already ordered my books. Luckily a seat opened up at the last minute and I was able to get back in the class. After that incident I started paying the excess out of pocket and when the VA funding came through the school would send me a refund check for the excess.

Also any time there was a problem with the Top-Up payment I had to send a question in via the website and wait for a response. And if I didn’t get a response it was difficult to re-attack except to basically fire the question off again and start over. This was in 2015.

Justin D. explains how he used Top-Up in the Air Force

So, with rising education expenses, you’ll likely discover your service’s tuition assistance (TA) doesn’t fully cover your tuition.  You could pay for the difference out of pocket, however, you should know of another option available to you, the Top-Up program.  You do not have to wait until separation or retirement to tap into your Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) benefits.  The Veteran’s Administration (VA) “Top-Up” program permits the VA to reimburse MGIB eligible students, both Chapters 30 and 34, for tuition and fees not covered by TA.  Top-Up benefits are limited to 36 months of benefit.  The benefit is retroactive, meaning one must first register for a course, apply for TA (currently limited to $4,500 per fiscal year/$250 per credit for the Air Force), and then apply to the VA for reimbursement for the tuition and fees in excess of what TA would cover.

To apply for TA, one first needs to establish an “Education Goal” in the Air Force Virtual Education Center or service equivalent, which provides the name of the school you are attending, what level of education is sought, and a list of the courses required for satisfaction of your degree program.  Once complete, you may “Start a Funding Request” by applying for TA for a course within your Education Goal.  Once the supervisor and education center certify the TA reimbursement (viewable in “Enrollments”), you may download and submit to your school and make payment for any balance owed.

If you would like MGIB Top-Up reimbursement, you’ll need to submit the Top-Up request to the VA.  For example, for one of my recent courses, the cost of enrollment was $1,335 ($445 per credit hour).  TA was certified for $750 ($250 per credit hour), leaving $585 for me, the student, to cover.  I then submitted the AF Form 1227 (certified TA approval) with the words “TOP-UP” and my SSN at the top as an attachment to the VA through the “Ask a Question” at https://gibill.custhelp.va.gov/app/ask.  The first time you apply for the Top-Up program, you must submit the VA Form 1990 (or VONAPP) and your TA form.  After that, you only need to submit the TA form.  Under the category, be sure to select “Tuition Assistance Top-Up”.  The VA will receive and process the request.  Reimbursement will be made to the funding accounts you establish for your VA e-Benefits account.

Once reimbursed for Top-Up, your regular MGIB benefits will be reduced. The amount of entitlement charged for Top-Up payments is determined by dividing the amount of the payment by the claimant’s full time monthly rate.  For example, if your full-time rate (after separation) would be $1034, you would be using approximately half of a month of benefits ($585 divided by $1034= 0.565 months). Then, you can add up all the Top-Up you’ve received while on active duty to find out how many months of full time benefits you have left when you separate. After reimbursement the VA will mail you a statement of benefits letter that will detail for you how much benefit was received and the remaining balance of total benefits, e.g., 35.5 months.

In summary, the MGIB Top-Up program provides a benefit to those who qualify that enables one to tap into their MGIB benefits while still serving, supplementing service TA to reduce the out-of-pocket expense of those attending courses that cost more than what TA will cover.  I used the Top-Up program at the point when I exceeded the fiscal year cap while completing undergraduate coursework and used the program again while attending a more expensive, private graduate school.  While use of Top-Up does reduce the amount of benefit remaining (corresponding to the requested reimbursement), it does not take away from the time limit to use the benefits post-separation (10 years in my case).

Have you used the VA Tuition Assistance Top-Up Program? If so, leave a comment below with your experience (please name your military service). Let’s make this the #1 source of Top-Up testimonials on the internet!