Vet School and Military

[horselover06]

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Does anyone have any idea how it works with Veterinary school and military dependents. I am the spouse of an active duty military member. We currently own our home in Alabama because my husband is stationed at Ft. Benning however we maintain our home state of Missouri. I know that the universities in AL will allow me in-state tuition simply because we do live there however will MO do the same because we claim it as our home state? I sort of doubt it but thought it was worth asking. Also does anyone know of any scholarships available for military dependents for vet school? Any other information regarding military dependents in vet school that anyone believes to be important please let me know.

 

[lalzi22]

Hey! Not a dependent yet, but one day I will be the dependent of a US Marine, so I know a bit about it. Can you use his post 9/11 GI bill, or does he plan on using it? If he doesn't it can pay for quite a chunk of vet school (how much depends on how much your vet school costs and how long he has been in the military since 9/11) Def. look into that. There are not many scholarships for spouses in most fields, simply because they only want to promote spouses in fields that can move with the men (ie. early childcare, education etc...) however, since the military does utilize vets, I would ask your man if he can ask is CO about where to find that info, as there may be a bit of money for that. I wouldn't bother looking on the websites because (as I am sure you know) they are USELESS. His CO would be able to direct him to the appropriate office to look up scholarships and such.

Also, do you collect BAH? If you ahve any money left over from like (you know, like $5, haha) while its only a little bit, you can pool some of that money for living expenses just so slightly less is taken out from loans.

 

[No Imagination]

Here is how I understand it, when you apply via the application process, (already forgot what it was called, VMAC or something), you set you home residency. You can really only apply to one school as a resident, therefor you have to weigh you chances to getting in OS vs. IS applicant pool and %'s, as well as IS vs. OS tuition. Several schools do let you change you residency after you have gotten in, but they are few and far between.

Not sure if I answered you question, but its late, and I have a neuro exam in 2 days, pretty much shot.

Hope i helped.

 

[luplodw]

I'd keep Alabama as your residency because there are 2 vet schools in alabama!!

 

[Armymutt25A]

Does anyone have any idea how it works with Veterinary school and military dependents. I am the spouse of an active duty military member. We currently own our home in Alabama because my husband is stationed at Ft. Benning however we maintain our home state of Missouri. I know that the universities in AL will allow me in-state tuition simply because we do live there however will MO do the same because we claim it as our home state? I sort of doubt it but thought it was worth asking. Also does anyone know of any scholarships available for military dependents for vet school? Any other information regarding military dependents in vet school that anyone believes to be important please let me know.

According to the new Spouse Residency Relief Act, an ammendment to the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act (an awesome piece of legislation, BTW) you can maintain your residency in your home state of MO or where ever you have lived in the military (same goes for AD members). Since applying and paying are two different issues, they have to be handled separately. I would recommend applying as IS where ever you you want to go/ think you have the best shot. Once accepted, then it is time to work out the payment part with the school. For AL, it should be no problem proving residency. For MO, as long as you have MO DLs, you should have it pretty easy by making them aware of the above laws. It would probably bolster your case if you were paying MO taxes as well.

The other thing to think about is the distance from an installation to your school. I'm not sure how far Lost-in-the-woods is from Columbia, but that can be a really crappy assignment for 4 years. What does your husband do?

As far as scholarships, there are various small ones available. My wife received $500 from the Officer Spouse's Club for Pharmacy School. As mentioned above, there is the Post-9/11 GI Bill transfer. Another source is AUSA and some regiments have scholarships for dependents. Check with the Ed Center. If you have a good FRSA, they might be able to help. Ours is completely useless and gave me the number for Army One Source. The only money you'll get from the Army itself is the HPSP or loan repayment, which comes with a free set of CPT bars (ok, so you actually have to pay for them, but it's like $6 for the shiny ones and $2.35 for 2 of the hook/pile tape (not Velcro) version).

 

[OliveOyl]

I am a prior active duty member, a current dependant, and a current member of the national guard. Whatever state you currently hold your residency is the state that I would put as your IS choice on VMCAS. However, you can generally look on-line or call each school that you are applying to that you think you may be able to qualify for residency for. They normally have their policy listed under the main campus website, not the vet school website. You CAN apply for in-state status to more than one school. I was a resident of NC last year and used that as my IS on VMCAS. However, b/c my DD-214 showed that I was a resident of LA prior to joining the Marine Corps and it had been less than 10 years, I was also able to apply there as an in-state applicant. I suggest doing this in the beginning and when filling out your supplemental application for your schools. It helps there b/c of the number of applicants admitted under IS status. This allowed me to increase my chances by having 2 IS schools. Also, once your other IS school gets your supplemental, if you have already discussed being IS with them, make sure that you follow-up to ensure they put you in the IS pile.

As far as $$ for dependents, the 9/11 GI Bill is the only thing I know of, however, make sure that you want to use the $$ for that. It may pay small amounts of what you have to pay and is likely NOT going to cover the full amount. You will probably still have a pretty large loan amount and me personally, I would rather transfer the GI Bill to one of my children. Check the website www.gibill.va.gov to see the amounts. I'd rather it pay the full amount for one child than a little bit for mine and still have to take out loans!

If you are willing to go active as well, there is the HPSP, which is a 3-yr scholarship in which you will pay back the scholarship with your time. This may be a good thing for you so that you will both be active and the Army will TRY to station ya'll together or at least close to each other.

 

[amom427]

You CAN apply for in-state status to more than one school. I was a resident of NC last year and used that as my IS on VMCAS. However, b/c my DD-214 showed that I was a resident of LA prior to joining the Marine Corps and it had been less than 10 years, I was also able to apply there as an in-state applicant [...] You will probably still have a pretty large loan amount and me personally, I would rather transfer the GI Bill to one of my children. [...] the Army will TRY to station ya'll together or at least close to each other.

You may want to call VMCAS and the schools before you do this! My husband is stationed in Florida and I changed my residency to Florida (no state taxes), but I can not claim my prior residency of Oklahoma just because it has been less than 10 years. Or my husband's prior residency of Louisiana. If my active-duty husband were applying he could claim Florida and Louisiana, but not me as a dependent. I checked because this would be a sweet deal!

You are not technically a resident of Alabama on paper. But you should be able to pay IS tuition to Auburn and Tuskegee. But you won't be in the IS applicant pool unless you change your residency to Alabama.

I personally would rather pay less in loans (and interest) and have more money to raise my children than to give them the GI Bill. That is why they will do well in school to get scholarships to undergrad just like me!! There are a few scholarships for spouses, but I only know about Air Force. You should be able to Google it.

I would like to add that if you are accepted as OOS to a school and your spouse gets orders to the same state, you can pay IS tuition. You may want to check your schools, but every state I've checked into has this (Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Florida).

One more thing about the last part of what I quoted: There are no guarantees in the military, you should know that. If you are both active-duty, they will only TRY as OliveOyl said. They could send you to Alaska and him to Japan if they wanted to. I had thought about HPSP and decided against it for this reason.

 

[horselover06]

Thank you for all of your answers to my questions! In answering some of your questions. We do OWN our home in AL and therefore, takes the military question out of the equation. I have an AL drivers license, vehicle is registered in AL, we pay property taxes in AL and I am considered a resident based on these. I am not employed and do not pay any state taxes to AL however, my husband is military and we pay Missouri state taxes.

From what I have read MO seems to be a school that is some what willing to change OOS to IS if you meet a few requirements. We do currently own property and pay MO property tax on it as well as pay state taxes from my husbands pay check. I will have to call the school directly and ask them how they would handle this situation. If we were not military we would be in MO and I would be considered IS.. I guess I will just have to get in touch with someone there.

As far as the GI Bill. Yes I will be using my husbands GI Bill. What they pay per year differs by state and as for AL they pay a max of $13,500 which is the current IS tuition for Auburn (not including books and etc). The last time I checked the Post 9/11 bill was worth around $50,000 or a little less. I have to finish looking into this further and when we apply to have it transferred which will be this year we will be able to get a little more in depth on it. My husband is a Ranger and has been active for 11 years. I am aware of Ranger spouse/dependent scholarships and I plan on applying for those as well.

Thanks!

 

[Armymutt25A]

amom427 - you might want to revisit the notion of residency with the schools. That act I cited is only a month or two old.

horselover06 - Being a Ranger doesn't tell me a whole lot, other than the battalion and regiment. If he's an 11A, Ft. L is probably a slim to none chance. 11B - even less. Being stationed at Benning, you could conceivably apply to UGA as IS. See if the Post post office will issue you a mailbox. You can do a similar thing at Ft. Campbell - live in TN and get a PO box. The post office there is in KY by a couple hundred yards.
Don't forget to look for USASOC spouse scholarships. The 75th is considered part of them.

 

[horselover06]

Armymutt25A: My husband is 11B. I will look into USASOC as well as check in with the University of Georgia and see what their requirements are as well regarding in-state tution. Auburn and Tuskegee or both under an hour away and Georgia is around 2-3 hours away, however if I can get in as IS than I would certainly apply. I will have to check in to that and see what I can find out!