HSCP and New GI Bill

[000777]

To all who would know.

Does anyone have an idea as to how the New GI bill will affect those who will be entering medical school with HSCP on 2009. I understand that the new GI Bill goes into effect August 2009 when I am hoping I will be entering medical school. I am in Texas and am prior service so I calculated that HSCP would be best for me. In HSCP, they pay you E-6/E-7 salary and you pay for medical school out of pocket. With the new GI Bill, tuition is paid directly to the institution and one is eligible for it after just 90 days active (at 40% rate and higher as you add more days active). I know with the old GI, you could start getting GI money after 2 years on HSCP or get the GI money during residency.... I am just wondering if anyone has more information considering both the new GI and medical HSCP are both fairly new.

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[darmalee]

I don't know a whole lot about the HSCP program, but if you go to the Nontraditional Students thread under the premedical heading, there is some pretty detailed information about the New GI Bill.

Also, here are two links that both have good info on this New GI Bill.
http://education.military.com/money-for-school/gi-bill/new-gi-bill-overview
http://www.gibill.va.gov/

Hope you can find at least some of your answers!

 

[NavyFP]

To all who would know.

Does anyone have an idea as to how the New GI bill will affect those who will be entering medical school with HSCP on 2009. I understand that the new GI Bill goes into effect August 2009 when I am hoping I will be entering medical school. I am in Texas and am prior service so I calculated that HSCP would be best for me. In HSCP, they pay you E-6/E-7 salary and you pay for medical school out of pocket. With the new GI Bill, tuition is paid directly to the institution and one is eligible for it after just 90 days active (at 40% rate and higher as you add more days active). I know with the old GI, you could start getting GI money after 2 years on HSCP or get the GI money during residency.... I am just wondering if anyone has more information considering both the new GI and medical HSCP are both fairly new.

This is off the military.com FAQ about the new GI bill.

8. Question: I am on active duty, is there a limit to my benefits?

Answer: Yes, active duty members are not eligible for the monthly housing stipend or for the book stipend. The amount of educational assistance payable is the lesser of the:

Established charges; or

The Top-up amount not covered by military tuition assistance.

If you have prior service, it seems you can use the GI bill. It is not as clear if you can gain GI bill eligibility while in the program. Since you have not been discharged, do you need to complete the entire 36 months prior to being eligible? Can you sign up after 12 months and take the 60% for the next 3 years? Not sure.

 

[nata]

I was looking into this as well. Honestly, it looks like this new GI bill might be real bad for me and my family - please let me know if anyone knows anything different. I'm currently an E6 in the HSCP program this year. I pay my own tuition. I will be receiving the monthly GI bill stipend starting in August.

With the new GI bill, it looks like this stipend will no longer be available to me next year (as I will be on active duty). While I will get a tuition break, I hope, tuition is still about 23,000/year + books, so I will max out the the amount which will likely be much less than the stipend I receive over the 12 months this year.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I did pay in the $1800 to be in the GI bill program to begin with, and now it looks like it's going to change a year into me using it, and not for the better. Overall, the new GI bill looks like a great deal, but I think that this is just an exceptional case that probably wasn't considered. I actually wonder if I shouldn't use it, and should just pass the benefits on to my kids, as they would probably get more from it than I would. Of course, that would mean that for this year, I would need to come up with about $1200/month I wasn't planning on.

 

[BigNavyPedsGuy]

I couldn't find much in the new GI Bill info about training programs (i.e. fellowship training).

Do the new benefits (BAH, Stipend) all come on top of the existing monthly training benefit? I'm assuming the monthly training benefit will go up? It said that payments will be in one lump sum to the school.

Does teh BAH take the place of the monthly payment?

Basically, will this help or hurt me when I do a fellowship after I seperate (several years from now)?

 

[184013]

BigNavy,
I will say in 99% of cases the upgrade is awesome.
It appears there ares some conflicts for special circumstances...people say it will interfere with HSPS..however overall it's a great improvement. Look on the VA's GI BILL website, they have a .PDF file 'brochure' that they post on the front page and they update it as they 'develope' this program. It has a breakdown, example scenario's, and answers to general questions.
.....I'm also the understanding that you can still choose to have the original benefits instead of the updated ones... not 100%, but perhaps this would alleviate the HSPS conflict.