Starting in the summer 2016 semester, students receiving benefits from the Post-9/11 GI Bill will have a different billing payment plan. The changes are coming from student account services and the Department of Veteran and Military Affairs (VMA), and will essentially push back the deadline for students to pay their bills. This gives both the students and the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) ample time process and send funds.
“This will benefit the students greatly,” said Alex Bynum, VMA assistant director.
Bynum said that the current timeline for payments creates a stressful period where lots of things could go wrong due to the VA’s processing time and how many students they had to process. In the past, a common problem with the current system included having to add and remove late fees to students’ accounts. This new system hopes to lessen the number of such problems.
There were also times when a student’s classes got dropped because their bills weren’t paid because the VA’s check didn’t come in on time, but that should happen far less frequently, so long as students get their paperwork in.
“Academically this will be very helpful for our students as well,” Bynum said, since classes won’t be dropped.
This system will not only give the VA more time to pay their bills, but the students as well. Post-9/11 GI Bill students get a monthly stipend of sorts that can go toward paying outside student costs such as parking passes. With the current system, there would be times when students would have to pay money upfront and then get reimbursed when they received that stipend at the end of the month. Now students will have time to save up money from those allowances and pay with that.
Alec Hall, freshman majoring in political science, is on the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and ran into the problem of having to pay for things upfront and then wait to get reimbursed. This can be a problem for students who aren’t expecting that to happen and don’t have such funds readily available.
“If we could get the stipends earlier and the University could hold [the deadline] back, that would be great,” Hall said.
He thinks this new system will be good because he feels it will be easier for the University to wait a few months for payment than it will be for a student to pay their part up front when they may be barely getting by.
In order to accept this new payment plan, students should click on the Post-9/11 GI Bill payment plan option on their MyBama student account. This option will become available as soon as bills are available.
“The option should just show up, however, this is our first time, so we definitely want our students to tell us if it doesn’t show up so that we can rectify that,” Bynum said.
Students must also have their advising worksheets in on April 15, by 4:45 p.m.
“That’s how they will essentially get on our list that they are using GI benefits,” Bynum said. “So that is a very important deadline.”
Bynum emphasized that as long as the students do their part and take care of their responsibilities, this new payment plan should run smoothly.
If students aren’t seeing that Post-9/11 payment plan option, or if they have further questions they should email [email protected] or call 205-348-5804.
For more information regarding VMA visit https://vets.sa.ua.edu/.
