Old technology impeding some GI Bill payments

[unhappycamper]

Old technology impeding some GI Bill payments
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes

Amanda Collier started college last August armed with a certificate of eligibility to use Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits that her dad, a Coast Guardsman of 22 years, had earned and transferred to her.

Next week Amanda will take final exams for her first semester at the University of Central Oklahoma. But neither she nor the university has received any GI Bill money yet to cover her tuition, housing or other costs.

The missing payments “made the semester a lot more complicated than it should have been,” she said Wednesday. “Usually the first semester is hardest because you’re trying to figure out everything. Having money complications made it a lot more stressful.”

Collier is among an unknown number of Post-9/11 GI Bill users still victimized by computer software at the Department of Veterans Affairs that left VA staff unable to process two categories of claims. These cases simply were set aside to await a software upgrade. Impacted students and schools, it appears, never received a letter to explain why payments were frozen.

This complication hit students whose Post-9/11 GI Bill award levels needed adjusting after the semester began, usually because a student added or dropped a course, as she had done. But it also impacted students who had changed campuses or schools, and therefore created “overlapping terms” which the old GI Bill software couldn’t handle, said Keith Wilson, director of the VA’s education service.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66461

[C_Lawyer09]

1. Most of what I've read thus far

Is that post 9/11 GI bill payments are taking 4-5 months for the first payment. Can't say I'm in the least bit surprised.