Expert: MARK A. HOWELL - 7/9/2009

Question
My husband was honorably discharged from the Navy and will be attending college in the fall.  In attempting to obtain his GI Bill (oi, could they take longer to do things?!?) we have been trying to discover whether he was offered and/or accepted the College Fund benefit.  He was a nuke and on one enlistment paper we see that he was granted an $8,000 enlistment bonus.  However, we can not find anything about the College Fund in his service record.  My questions are, where would the College Fund paper be, what does it look like and how do we determine, other than finding it, if he was enrolled in the program and for how much?

Answer
Jaime,
I'm guessing he just recently got out?  If he joined after 1985 he was automatically enrolled in the Montgomery GI Bill unless he made a written election to disenroll.  It's one of those things they talk about when you first join but don't really explain while you're signing your life away on tons of paperwork that you don't understand.  The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps College Funds is a subset of the GI Bill.

The Navy College Fund was implemented 1 Jan 1990, to provide additional educational benefits to by which to recruit qualified, high school graduates into critical or hard-to-fill ratings, such as nuclear.  It is offered by the DoD through each Service branch as part of an enlistment or reenlistment contract. The College Fund is an additional amount of money that increases an individual's basic monthly benefit and is included in his monthly GI Bill payment from the VA.  This means that it can actually boost his regular GI Bill benefit payment, sometimes up to a maximum of $950. The amount he receives is determined by a number of factors including when he enlisted, the length of his enlistment contract, the service he joined, the job he was in, and where he served.

The Navy (not the VA) determines who receives the College Fund and the amount received. When he's ready to use it, the VA will want him to send them a copy of his College Fund contract to ensure the correct amount is added to his monthly benefit.  It's looks just like all the other tons of paperwork he signed years ago.
If you live near a Navy base you can simply visit the Personnel Office and ask to obtain a copy.  If you don't live near a base, try calling the GI Bill Office at Navy PERSCO headquarters at 1-800-962-1425 or (901) 874-4275.

I hope this helps clear it up a little.  Sometimes I think they make it difficult on purpose.
Good luck,
   Colonel H