Calculating Entitlement Use

Once you start claiming VA educational benefits, you start burning them up.  Sooner or later, you may get concerned about how long those benefits will last, and how to manage what remains.  The key to budgeting your benefits is understanding how the VA calculates “entitlement use.”

All VA beneficiaries are awarded a set number of months of benefit entitlement, usually 36 months for most forms of the GI Bill, or 45 months for the Chapter 35 Survivors and Dependents’ educational assistance program.  VA Vocational Rehabilitation is a completely different type of program and the initial entitlement might vary, but the concept of “entitlement use” is the same.

It is important to realize that your entitlement is not based on calendar months, but rather payment months.  Thirty-six months of benefits is not the same as three years, because the 36 months do not have to be consecutive, and you don’t get paid for the breaks between terms or time that you take off.

That’s really important, so let me say it again: your entitlement is not based on calendar months.

Think of it like money in a bank.  If you go to school and claim your benefits, the VA will pay you out of that entitlement “account” until you stop attending or use it all up.  When you are on break between terms, or if you stop going to school for a while, the VA stops paying you, and you aren’t using up any of your entitlement.  Your remaining entitlement will just sit there until you are ready to start using it again, or until it expires (your “delimiting date”).

Taking a Break from Classes

No matter how carefully you plan ahead, there may come a point in your educational career when you decide that you need to take a break, for any number of valid reasons.  You may have been called back into active-duty service.  You may need time to take care of a family member, recover

from an illness or injury, buy a house, get married, or have a baby.  Sometimes people have to face an unexpected crisis or disaster, and need time to deal with it.  Perhaps you are in the process of changing your academic goal or career focus and need a little time to sort through your options.  Sometimes people get stressed out or overwhelmed, and just need a change of scenery for a while.  Whatever the reason, sometimes you may just need to take a break.

Before you do, make sure you understand all the rules and implications of your decision, to avoid any unpleasant surprises.  Here are a few things to check when you’re thinking of taking a semester or two off: