Student veterans wait for tuition payments from government

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Coming home from war and going to school -- that's the plan for many U.S. soldiers. But we've discovered the new GI Bill isn't working like it's supposed to.

Instead, many vets, including plenty in our area, are still asking, "Where's the tuition money?"

"We have 463 total VA students," said Alisa Roy, assistant registrar at UNC-Charlotte.

One of those is 23-year-old Army vet Tavoris Adams.

"I was stationed at Fort Bragg, then I went to Afghanistan," said Adams.

Now, he's studying computer science at UNCC. But, he ran into a snafu when the GI Bill did not come through with his college tuition.

"It was like a month late. I was kind of hurting at first," he said. "I was just going to work and back to school, so I just had to save every penny I could."

"Tuition and fees for an undergraduate student is about $2,000 a semester," Roy said.

Adams is not alone and neither is UNCC. The VA is backed up with tuition payments around the country because of changes made to the new Post-9/11 GI Bill.

"Anyone that served longer than 30 days after 9-1-01 in the military is eligible, so there's a volume that the VA can't get caught up," said Roy.

She says that UNCC is letting war veterans stay in school until the money comes through, but some colleges are kicking those students out for nonpayment.

Roy says soldier students at any college should talk to the registrar's office because they know when the money is coming and if they can float payments.

"We're hoping the rest of the payments come at the end of November," said Roy.

Adams finds the backlog ironic.

"In the military, you have to be everywhere on time or at least 10 minutes early, so that kind of frustrated me," he said. "I felt the VA should at least be the same way."

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