Question about TA from the National Guard

If your in the National Guard I’ve read the National Guard will give you $4500 for college. Now is that just $4500 for the whole year or is per semester? Also can the $4500 be applied towards grad school? Thanks

You are eligible for undergraduate TA after you have completed 12 months of service after AIT. It is $4500 per fiscal year. However, there is a $250 per credit hour limit. This usually works out fine because there are tons of schools who will only charge $750 per class. This way, TA will cover all of your tuition needs. Extra fees and books are not included; just tuition, and no more than $750 per class.
If you fail, drop, or even get lower than a C in an undergraduate course, you must pay back your TA! TA will not pay for the same class twice. So, if you failed it the first time, you will have to pay for it out of pocket the second time.

You are eligible to use TA for graduate school after you have served 10 years following your AIT graduation. The $750 per class limit still applies, however. Most graduate schools will charge you a military rate of around $1500. That means TA is only going to cover half of your tuition, and you still have to pay for books and any other fees. If you get lower than a B, you will have to pay back your TA!

You are also eligible for FAFSA and other federal programs while collecting TA from the military. On top of that, many states offer free tuition at state schools for National Guard personnel. There is also the GI Bill, and Kicker available.

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You are eligible to use TA for graduate school after you have served 10 years following your AIT graduation.
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Just to clarify this part:
There is only a 10 year service requirement if TA was used to fund a portion (even one class) of an undergraduate degree. If you already have a bachelor’s degree and TA was not used at all for it, then there is no 10 year requirement. You could start using it for your Master’s once you complete that first 12 months of service following AIT.

Different units may offer additional money or loan repayment as an incentive to join or as a re-enlistment bonus. Since the Guard is a state entity, a lot of the education programs tend to vary by state.

That said, if this is something you do, make sure you understand the limitations of the program because there will be some. You may have a service commitment; be limited to certain majors; be limited to certain schools; have to be in a degree program as opposed to a certificate program; or any number of other restrictions. The flip side is that many schools, especially state schools, will work with you in terms of getting you into the classroom because they know they will be paid eventually.

Oh that doesn’t sound good at all. 10 years after you serve for grad school is ridiculous to say the least. I already went down the FAFSA road and am looking to avoid anything that will result in more loans to pay back.

Not really. If someone is considering making the Guard a career, then this benefit might be a deciding factor.

I didn’t start my Masters degree until I had 20 years in the military. It’s one reason why I stayed in until 24 years so that I could complete it. Yes it did take me 4 years to get my Masters, but I got it.

TA isn’t the big college incentive, though. That’s the GI Bill and College Fund. If you want to join the service to pursue a degree, you need to be looking into GI Bill benefits, not TA.
TA is a little just something extra.

I am using TA to pursue my Graduate degree right now. I am holding off on using my GI Bill untill I get out. Its more valuable after the service than during.

Its 10 years of service, not 10 years after service. And if you already have your bachelor’s, you can use TA for your master’s 12 months after you complete AIT.

This may be best suited to GQ. I will relocate this thread.

OK well forget TA than. TA doesn’t sound like something I would want to pursue if the price tag is 10 years of additional service even if you use it for only one undergrad class. My next question is if you are able to deploy somewhere what kind of money could you make during your time overseas?

My issue is time isn’t on my side so much anymore and I really need to get things going in life as soon as I can.

The issue with that is despite the fact I have a four year it has nothing to do with what I want to get a masters degree in. As a result of it being null and void there are a bunch of pre-reqs I’m going to need to take which are undergrad classes.

It depends on your rank. This is very easy to look up : http://www.dfas.mil/dam/jcr:7061e0ca-a436-42f9-aa30-1a93b6454aa3/2015MilitaryPayChart.pdf

As an example : E4, 2 years service. $2122 a month. Then, you do get some additional money on top of that : they kick in another $500 or so for housing/$300 food under some circumstances (a common one if is you are deployed overseas but have a wife at home, you get some additional money for that)

Anyways, this is in no possible world worth it. At all. You can become an open road truck driver with about a month of training, and a couple months driving for low pay to get checked out. Last I heard, they make $3k a month the first year or 2… Being a trucker carries risks, obviously - but no one is actively trying to shoot you, or blow you up.

The college benefits are ok…but if you choose a sensible major and pass it, you’ll come out ahead even with loans. By sensible, I mean something with real job prospects that are degree specific and with low unemployment. Most flavors of engineering, certain niche fields of science (like geology in Houston), etc. Starting salaries in these kind of things range from 50k to 90k. (the engineering degrees seem to average around 50 except for California)

You don’t need the national guard to complete college. I actually did join the national guard, and I realize now that I would have finished sooner had I had not. For an in-state school with in-state tuition, you get about 4k from the Feds (Pell grant), some additional money if it’s a STEM degree (and don’t bother going to college if it isn’t, basically), and then you can borrow from the Feds up to a limit. (about 9-10k or so). This is enough that in states with reasonable in-state tuition you just need a part time job to earn another 4-8k or so and you can pay all your expenses. It is possible to go to school full time this way.

Yes, student loans suck. However, it’s better to owe money (which, ultimately, equates to a future risk of around 10-15% of your future pay being taken, or some phone calls that you can block) than to owe blood. The National Guard is the military. There are a lot of dangerous things you could end up having to do that carry a real risk of maiming or death. Also, be aware of a generations long recruiting scam : many of the MOSes offered for the National Guard train you in one thing, but when it comes to deployment to Iraq/Afganistan, a very large fraction of people ended up either fighting as infantry or taking about the same risks by driving on the IED infested roads. (for instance, everyone in field artillery, MPs, medics, etc usually ended up having to fight as infantry with less infantry-specific training)

I didn’t spot this, earlier. Enlisted service is one thing - a bad idea. Officers, however…As you can see, right from the chart, it’s about 40k for officers, and that’s just base pay. For people who don’t have engineering degrees, that’s decent money. Those risks I mentioned? Officers get killed/maimed as well, but the chances are less, and in peacetime periods like right now, the risks are lower still.

If you’re in reasonably good physical shape, I’d consider it.

Still, don’t hinge your decision on those college benefits. One little catch that came up when I tried to collect is that some of these benefits are in no way a sure thing. Sure, the glossy brochure says one thing - but when it comes time to collect… As I recall, specifically, it took about a year for some of my tuition assistance to get paid - in the meantime I had to pay those expenses somehow. Pretty much the only benefits you can count are are 1. The GI bill (because it’s administered by the Federal government) 2. Basic pay and bonuses.

The other stuff you may collect, you may not. It is what it is.

One final thing. For grad school, you can borrow limitless amounts of money. (called a Plus loan). Interest rates are a little steep, but, again, the Feds have started offering what is basically a limited risk payment plan (called Income Based Repayment. To summarize, you only have to pay a certain amount of money, dependent on your income, and after https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/understand/plans/income-driven 20 years they forgive the rest)

So, at most, you have less money to spend for the next 20 years. Annoying, but not catastrophic, and you can do anything you want with your life. No sweltering in BDUs (those things are both hot and scratchy), eating cold MREs, road marching hundreds of miles with shin splints, getting sent to bed at 1am and woken at 5…man. Good times.)

Whether or not this is a good idea can be pretty easily estimated. What’s your job prospects now? (average pay you can statistically expect to get.) What’s your job prospects post-grad school? (average pay graduates with that degree have)

Would you still be significantly ahead, including the lost income during the 2-3 years that grad school requires, if 10% of your future pay went to loan repayments?

If so, do it. If not, it isn’t worth funding it via the military, either.

Along with the GI Bill and other college programs many states offer free tuition. The Natuonal Guard is also a state organization. In my state we get 15 free credits per semester. All you pay are the fees. That is for any state or county college up to and including Rutgers University. Any GI Bill money is on top of that.

Not to mention endowed scholarships and grants funded by the school and other entities. ISTR that my undergrad school had some money donated by an alum that went toward aid to military.

What the OP needs to understand is that there are so many different programs available for servicemembers to pay for college that it’s impossible to list them in one thread. Some involve loans that the government pays back; you don’t have to pay on them at all. Some involve checks that the military cuts directly to the school. They all have a service commitment of one kind or another because nothing comes for free. Basically, any kind of educational assistance is a loan that you pay back in service. If that’s not something that you want to do, then there may be alternatives to pay for your education.

So what can you get exactly if you just join for the period of time you enlisted for?