Friday, June 11, 2010

SVAC Chair Introduces Act to Improve the Post-9/11 GI Bill

Andrew Gonyea
Communications Assistant

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) introduced a bill to improve educational assistance for veterans who served after September 11. S.3447, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010, contains several major fixes to the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

The text of the bill can be found here.

Especially notable are the proposed fixes to the definition of active duty in the Post-9/11 GI Bill. To remedy the unintended exclusion of certain Guard and Reserve members, the bill would modify and expand the definition to make those members fully eligible for GI Bill benefits.

Additionally, the bill contains provisions to increase the approved programs of education to include on-job, apprenticeship, flight, and non-college degree training, and to eliminate some of the bureaucratic hurdles to obtaining the appropriate benefits.

Akaka intends S. 3447 to be a rough framework and starting point for improving the Post-9/11 GI Bill, signed into law in 2008.

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