Kentucky Tuition Waiver for the Family of a Deceased Veteran

Kentucky waives tuition for the family of a deceased veteran under two separate statutes with materially different limits, and the Department of Veterans Affairs presents them as one program. Which one you fall under decides whether there is a clock at all. KRS 164.507 is the general case. The nonremarried spouse, regardless of age, and any child, stepchild, or orphan under twenty-six, of a deceased veteran pays no matriculation or tuition fees at any state-supported university, junior college, or vocational training institute, for a period not exceeding forty-five months. The deceased must have served during a national emergency, a war declared by Congress, or United Nations actions, or have died on active duty regardless of wartime service, or have died as a result of a service-connected disability acquired on active duty regardless of wartime service. They must have been a Kentucky resident at death or married to a Kentucky resident at death, and if discharged, discharged under honorable conditions. KRS 164.505 is the killed-in-service case, and it is drafted without a cap. A person shall not be required to pay matriculation or tuition fees if their deceased parent, stepparent, or unremarried-spouse's deceased spouse was a Kentucky resident on joining the Kentucky National Guard or on entering military service and was killed while on state active duty, active duty for training, or inactive duty training with the Kentucky National Guard, or while on active duty during a national emergency, declared war, or United Nations actions, or was killed by hostile fire; or died as a result of a service-connected disability acquired in those circumstances. The absence of a cap in KRS 164.505 is not an inference. KDVA's own tuition waiver FAQ, setting out the forty-five month limit and the age-26 limit, carries the parenthetical "does not apply to KRS 164.505 waiver." The statute names no duration and no age limit, and the administering agency confirms neither applies. A family that qualifies under KRS 164.505 should make sure the certification is issued under that section, because being processed under the wrong one imposes limits the law does not. Both sections carry the same scholarship offset, which is easy to miss and works in the student's favor. If a student admitted under either section holds a cash scholarship paid or payable to the institution, from any source, the scholarship amount is applied to the student's credit toward incidental expenses of attendance, and any balance is returned to the student if the scholarship terms permit. The scholarship is not simply absorbed by tuition the waiver already covers. Proof requirements are documentary. The parent-child relationship is shown by birth certificate, adoption papers, marriage certificate, or other documentary evidence, and a stepchild must have been a member of the veteran's household at the time of death. Service and cause of death must be certified from the records of the Kentucky Department of Military Affairs, VA, or DoD. As with the disabled-veteran waiver, this covers tuition only, applies only to Kentucky public institutions, and does not require the student to be a Kentucky resident.