VA behind in making GI Bill Payments

Thousands of veterans attending college on the new G.I. Bill are having to take out loans, put off buying textbooks or dig into savings because of delays by the Department of Veterans Affairs in issuing benefit checks, veterans groups and college officials say.

The bill, which took effect Aug. 1, provides money to cover much, and often all, of the costs of attending college — including tuition, housing and books — for veterans who served in the military after Sept. 10, 2001.

As was anticipated, the new benefit enticed more than 277,000 veterans and their eligible relatives to apply for assistance. But the veterans department, with its antiquated technology, has struggled to keep up with the flood of claims.

This week, the department reported that it had made tuition payments to colleges on just 20,000 of those applications, and had made another 13,000 payments directly to veterans for various expenses. The department said that it was taking an average of 35 days to process claims, but that the wait could stretch to eight weeks and possibly longer.

“Taking into account the complexity of this bill, we’ve done about as well as could have been done,” said Keith Wilson, the department’s education service director. “That doesn’t alleviate our concern that we’re not meeting everybody’s expectations.”

So far, colleges around the country appear to be allowing veterans to enroll in classes even though they have not received tuition payments.

But many veterans who had expected to begin receiving assistance for housing, books and other expenses by Sept. 1 are having to pay out of their own pockets. The department now says it never intended to send checks for housing until October, though many veterans say they were not aware of that.

“We’re discouraged by what we’ve seen and how it’s affecting veterans in the field,” said Ryan Gallucci, spokesman for AmVets, a veterans’ service organization. “It is national in scope.”

Christen DeNicholas, 23, said the benefit persuaded her to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design. But after putting down a deposit for an apartment and enrolling in classes, Ms. DeNicholas was notified at orientation that the college had not received her $8,000 tuition payment.