The U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held another hearing on legislation that would streamline benefits for veterans under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

S. 3447 would revamp the benefit formula that has been in place since the Post-9/11 GI Bill took effect last year. The bill, as currently written, would establish a new national cap on benefits for private colleges – both for- and non-profit.

The new cap would be derived from the average tuition and fees of all private and public baccalaureate institutions across the nation, instead of the maximum benefit on the highest tuition of any public program in a given state. 

Many higher education officials are supportive of the concept of setting a national standard of benefits and agree with the goal of erasing inequities between states. However, there is concern that the currrent discussion regarding a cap would result inveterans at private institutions receiving less funding in nearly 25 states. Language for the bill is still being hammered out.

In addition, the bill would make small changes with regards to funding for undergraduate education at public institutions and extend benefits to more members of the National Guard and Active Guard Reserve.  This could potentially lead to coverage for an additional 30,000 whom were not covered by the original law.

Finally, the bill extends housing allowances to students taking courses purely online. Though the current GI Bill provides no allowance to students taking on distance education courses, the legislation under consideration would provide those students with 50 percent of the allowance given to residential students.