More about Tuition Assistance
I talked to my husband more about Tuition Assistance and he clued me in on the new criteria one has to meet before they are allowed to even use TA.
- You must be recommended for promotion/advancement. You also have to have passed the latest advancement test you were eligible for. (Basically if you are eligible for the next rate, but fail the test, you cannot use TA.)
- You must pass the PRT.
- If you have less then 20 years and are enlisted, you must have over a year left on your contract (ie you have 9 months left, you can’t use TA).
- You cannot have been punished by court martial.
I’m kind of annoyed with the you must pass the advancement test portion of the new requirements. There are only so many who will pass anyway just because of quotas! So you can do well on the test but not as well as others, thus failing thus not allowing you to use TA.
I think the biggest thing that gets me is the use of TA to get multiple degrees – actually the lack thereof now. My husband is the perfect example of this – working on his second Masters degree means he can’t use TA anymore. The GI Bill is available (and I’ve mentioned the difficulty of using this in the past) so in our case we put the tuition on a credit card, and now have to wait for the reimbursement to come on and hope it gets here by the time the next semesters tuition is due.
I get that not everyone takes advantage of attending school while working. I do wonder how much money the Navy will save by making these changes and how many the changes will effect.
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