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Situation Normal
All Fucked Up.
It's possible this isn't, quite, as bad as it looks but it looks pretty bad.
The GI Bill is pro-rating my months. If, as happened in Dec, the entire month isn't used, my stipend is reduced. So, for the month of Dec (and probably for Sept.), I got all of 400 dollars. I say probably Sept. because I don't know, and by the time they caught up to me, I had an advance in the bank, a books payment, and a job, so it's possible there was an extra 400, when I was thinking it was a missing 1,100.
Let's recap some of the joys of the system. I was in the Guard, so I wasn't, automatically, entitled to the GI Bill. I was lucky enough to be deployed, and I did 14 months active. That entitled me to it, but at a reduced rate; 60 percent.
That's 60 percent of the stipend, and 60 percent of the tution to a UC School (since that's the most costly state school in Calif.). Ok, 60 percent of a UC tuition is about 7,600 bucks (the sent me a nice note telling me that's he amount they were setting aside for me).
But, not so fast. It seems the bill was written to say I was entitled to 60 percent of my tution, and the most they would pay was 7,600 bucks. My tuiton for the previous quarter was about 350 bucks. I thought I was golden. Nope. They paid 60 percent of it. I paid the balance. The extra 7,000 they have set aside... they intend to keep.
That, by the way, only screws the reservist, and those people who were on active duty on 11 Sept, 2001, and let their contracts expire before they had served 36 more months. Every one else, every singe Regular Army troop who enlisted after That Tuesday... full ride. They might have been doing easy duty stateside, as a clerk in personnel at Ft. Jackson, they get the full bennies.
The guys who were deployed for 14 months, almost always to a combat zone, who lost homes, businesses, spouses... they get cut rate benefits.
Frustration top of that, each quarter has to be certified, which can't be done until the quarter starts, on the off chance a vet will sign up, and then choose to not go to class. The person who does that, was ill for the first two weeks of this quarter. I have not seen a check since the 400 they sent me on New Year's Eve.
And now we come to the meat of it. This isn't the Montgomery GI Bill, which was a defined benefit: one paid in and a set amount of money was paid out. Until the money was gone, they kept paying.
No, this is a timed benefit. I have 36 months of stipend; i.e. 4 academic years. Even if they are saving the dribs and drabs that doesn't do me a lot of good I ought to be able to get my degree in that time. What am I going to do, apply to an OTD, or Ph.D program, just to get the extra time?
And if they aren't saving the dribs and drabs... well this year it looks as though they will keep about 2 1/2 months of the time from Sept. to June. I'll be a full-time student (with a 13 unit average, over three quarters). I have to keep my grades up, or they take the money away. I have to make the time to study.
And I have to make up about 25 percent of my expected income.
Which pisses me off. I'm not getting a handout. I earned this. I had to fight like hell to get it (twice). I got told this wasn't something I should be given (by that spineless asshole McCain, who said we couldn't afford this GI Bill, not because of the money, but because it would provide incentives for mid-career NCOs to leave the service; rather than do more tours in Iraq... what do you call a guy on his third tour? Divorced... that wouldn't have anything to do with the mid-career losses? Nah, didn't think so).
So I'm talking to my congresswoman's office. Right now we're playing phone tag, but I am pissed.
And broke. Sur la Table is decent work, and they like me, and I am getting a fair number of hours, but 20 hours a week is a big drain, and it only pays 8 bucks an hour... you can do the math. That was enough... on top of my stipend, but cut that from 9,900 a year to 7,400, and that's starts to get a little tight.
Hell, it feels a lot tight.
It's possible this isn't, quite, as bad as it looks but it looks pretty bad.
The GI Bill is pro-rating my months. If, as happened in Dec, the entire month isn't used, my stipend is reduced. So, for the month of Dec (and probably for Sept.), I got all of 400 dollars. I say probably Sept. because I don't know, and by the time they caught up to me, I had an advance in the bank, a books payment, and a job, so it's possible there was an extra 400, when I was thinking it was a missing 1,100.
Let's recap some of the joys of the system. I was in the Guard, so I wasn't, automatically, entitled to the GI Bill. I was lucky enough to be deployed, and I did 14 months active. That entitled me to it, but at a reduced rate; 60 percent.
That's 60 percent of the stipend, and 60 percent of the tution to a UC School (since that's the most costly state school in Calif.). Ok, 60 percent of a UC tuition is about 7,600 bucks (the sent me a nice note telling me that's he amount they were setting aside for me).
But, not so fast. It seems the bill was written to say I was entitled to 60 percent of my tution, and the most they would pay was 7,600 bucks. My tuiton for the previous quarter was about 350 bucks. I thought I was golden. Nope. They paid 60 percent of it. I paid the balance. The extra 7,000 they have set aside... they intend to keep.
That, by the way, only screws the reservist, and those people who were on active duty on 11 Sept, 2001, and let their contracts expire before they had served 36 more months. Every one else, every singe Regular Army troop who enlisted after That Tuesday... full ride. They might have been doing easy duty stateside, as a clerk in personnel at Ft. Jackson, they get the full bennies.
The guys who were deployed for 14 months, almost always to a combat zone, who lost homes, businesses, spouses... they get cut rate benefits.
Frustration top of that, each quarter has to be certified, which can't be done until the quarter starts, on the off chance a vet will sign up, and then choose to not go to class. The person who does that, was ill for the first two weeks of this quarter. I have not seen a check since the 400 they sent me on New Year's Eve.
And now we come to the meat of it. This isn't the Montgomery GI Bill, which was a defined benefit: one paid in and a set amount of money was paid out. Until the money was gone, they kept paying.
No, this is a timed benefit. I have 36 months of stipend; i.e. 4 academic years. Even if they are saving the dribs and drabs that doesn't do me a lot of good I ought to be able to get my degree in that time. What am I going to do, apply to an OTD, or Ph.D program, just to get the extra time?
And if they aren't saving the dribs and drabs... well this year it looks as though they will keep about 2 1/2 months of the time from Sept. to June. I'll be a full-time student (with a 13 unit average, over three quarters). I have to keep my grades up, or they take the money away. I have to make the time to study.
And I have to make up about 25 percent of my expected income.
Which pisses me off. I'm not getting a handout. I earned this. I had to fight like hell to get it (twice). I got told this wasn't something I should be given (by that spineless asshole McCain, who said we couldn't afford this GI Bill, not because of the money, but because it would provide incentives for mid-career NCOs to leave the service; rather than do more tours in Iraq... what do you call a guy on his third tour? Divorced... that wouldn't have anything to do with the mid-career losses? Nah, didn't think so).
So I'm talking to my congresswoman's office. Right now we're playing phone tag, but I am pissed.
And broke. Sur la Table is decent work, and they like me, and I am getting a fair number of hours, but 20 hours a week is a big drain, and it only pays 8 bucks an hour... you can do the math. That was enough... on top of my stipend, but cut that from 9,900 a year to 7,400, and that's starts to get a little tight.
Hell, it feels a lot tight.
no subject
All I can suggest is throwing a
no subject
But at the level of worry, of being afraid that the only way to get through school is to go into non-dischargable debt... yeah. that's pretty personal.
I earned this, blood sweat and tears; rage and despair were the coin we paid for this bit of tarnished hope, and the end result is less than even that, at that level it's personal.
take it personally
Yossarian: they're trying to kill me!
other: what?
Yossarian: Every time we go on a bombing mission, they try to kill me!
other: but this is a war. they're trying to kill all of us.
Yossarian: But they're trying to kill me!
no subject