Kansas In-State Tuition for Veterans and Service Members

Section 48-3601 deems certain service members, veterans and their families residents of Kansas for tuition and fee purposes, without regard to how long they have actually lived here. Section 76-729(c) points back to it, so the ordinary twelve-month domicile rule for resident fees does not apply. Three routes, and they reach different people. Subsection (a) covers a current member of the armed forces, or the member's spouse or dependent child, enrolled or accepted for admission at a postsecondary educational institution. Current membership alone is enough. "Armed forces" is defined to include the army, navy, marine corps, air force, space force, coast guard, the Kansas army or air national guard, and any component of the military reserves, so a drilling reservist is inside this route. Subsection (b)(1) covers a person eligible for benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill or any other federal law authorising educational benefits for veterans, who files a letter of intent to establish residence in the state with the institution and lives in the state while attending. Note what this route asks and does not ask: it asks for eligibility for the benefit, not for using it, and it asks for a letter of intent rather than for proof of domicile. Subsection (b)(2) covers a veteran who was stationed in Kansas for at least eleven months during active service, or who had established Kansas residency before active service, and who lives in Kansas at the time of enrolment. This is the route for a veteran with no remaining VA education entitlement, and it is the one most often overlooked. Eleven months at Fort Riley or McConnell twenty years ago still qualifies a veteran who moves back today. Subsection (b)(3) extends that same eleven-month route to the spouse or dependent of such a veteran, living in Kansas at the time of enrolment. None of the three carries a waiting period, and none asks for a disability rating. What these sections do is set the tuition rate. They do not pay it. A veteran relying on subsection (b)(2) with no GI Bill entitlement left pays resident rates out of pocket, which at a Kansas public institution is a large saving and not a scholarship. Kansas separately requires institutions to give veterans and service members priority treatment in several respects, and runs the Kansas military service scholarship through the Board of Regents for members who served after September 11, 2001 in an area qualifying for hostile fire pay for ninety days or more, or fewer if injured there.