Arizona Purple Heart Tuition Waiver Scholarship

ARS 15-1808 requires the Arizona Board of Regents to provide a tuition waiver scholarship at any state university, and community college districts to provide the same at any community college, to a Purple Heart recipient who meets three conditions together. The first is the Purple Heart citation itself. The second is a geographic tie at the moment of injury: the person has to have been an Arizona resident, or to have been stationed in Arizona, at the time of the injury that resulted in the Purple Heart. That is a snapshot at the time of the wound rather than current residency, so a veteran who has since moved away and come back still qualifies, and one who moved to Arizona afterward does not. The third is a VA disability rating of 50 percent or more. The waiver is capped in credits rather than dollars. At a community college it covers up to 64 credit hours. At a university it covers a total, including credits transferred from an Arizona community college, equal to the number required for a baccalaureate in the student's initially declared course of study. Changing majors late therefore risks running past the cap. The applicant has to otherwise meet the institution's admission requirements. A person convicted of a class 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 felony is ineligible. Apply through the Arizona Department of Veterans' Services, which publishes a Tuition Waiver and Verification Form, and then through the institution. A Purple Heart recipient rated below 50 percent does not qualify here but should still look at the in-state tuition entry, which has no rating test at all and is often worth more than people expect at Arizona's nonresident rates.