any GI Bill users here?

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I'm trying to get an idea on how the whole process works of going to college using my GI Bill. The web site is worthless for general questions like this, and it's too busy at the college (Texas State @ San Marcos) with all the new fishies to go in there. Just wondering if someone has some experience that could help me out a bit...

hehehe. It's kind of funny--as a civilian after 8 years of being in the Navy, I'm still doing paperwork and waiting in lines. Yeehah.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

The main thing I don't understand is how are you supposed to pay for your classes and everything if you are getting paid per month via the GI bill? Do you have to take out a loan to pay for the classes, and then use the GI bill to pay that loan?

 

[Mloot]

That's what my experience has been. The thing you don't want to do is only take one class at at time. If you are going for less than "half-time" the GI Bill will pay for the cost of the class, but will not cover books and other expenses. But as long as you are going half-time or more (6 credit hours or more, IIRC) then the GI Bill will pay you a monthly stipend (rates are based on how many credit hours you are taking) for the length of the semester.

I'm not sure how it will work in a normal university, because I'm still going to community college for my basic courses. It has been my experience that I had to bite the bullet at first (cost for classes, books, etc), but once I started getting the monthly GI Bill payments, I got more than enough to cover what I put out at the beginning of the semester. And there was enough extra to cover the next semester when it came time to register again.