Minnesota GI Bill: Educational Assistance

The Minnesota GI Bill in section 197.791 is the state's headline education programme and it is smaller in practice than the $15,000 figure suggests, because of how the award is computed. The amount in any semester or term is the eligible person's cost of attendance, minus the federal Pell Grant, minus the Minnesota state grant under section 136A.121, minus any federal military or veterans educational benefits the person received or was eligible to receive in that term. The statute names the Montgomery GI Bill, the GI Bill kicker, federal tuition assistance and vocational rehabilitation benefits, and then sweeps in "any other federal benefits associated with the person's status as a veteran". The one carve-out is VA disability compensation, which is not subtracted. So this is a last-dollar gap filler. A veteran with full Post-9/11 entitlement will usually compute to zero. The programme is most valuable to a veteran whose federal entitlement is exhausted, partial, or unusable for the programme they are in. "Cost of attendance" is the section 136A.121, subdivision 6 figure multiplied by 1.2, and for graduate students the same figure multiplied by 1.2 using the tuition and fee maximum set by law for four-year programmes, with full time defined as eight credits per term. The caps are $5,000 per state fiscal year and $15,000 in a lifetime. The lifetime cap is shared: subdivisions 6 and 7 say aggregate benefits across educational assistance, apprenticeship and on-the-job training, and the additional professional benefits must not exceed $15,000 in a lifetime. Awards are made "on a funds-available basis", and the standing appropriation in subdivision 8 is capped at $6,000,000 in any fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 2012. That is a rationing clause, not a formality; it is also now the appropriation that funds the survivor education benefit in section 197.75, which Laws 2026, chapter 49 added to the same $6,000,000 line without raising it. Eligibility is broader than the definition of veteran used elsewhere in Minnesota law. Subdivision 1, paragraph (h) takes the section 197.447 definition and then adds a service member honorably discharged from each period of federal active duty who served 90 days or more of federal active duty in a foreign country during a time of hostilities, or was awarded the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Kosovo Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal or any other campaign medal authorised for service after September 11, 2001, or received a service-related medical discharge from a period of service in a foreign country during hostilities. A person who meets that test and is still serving is a veteran for this section. There is also a five-year nonveteran route: a person who served honorably for five or more years cumulatively in the Minnesota National Guard or any other active or reserve component, with some part of that service on or after September 11, 2001. Family routes exist but are gated on federal eligibility. The surviving spouse or child of a person who died as a direct result of military service, and the spouse or child of a person with a total and permanent service-connected disability, qualify only if they are eligible to receive federal education benefits under 38 U.S.C. chapter 33 or chapter 35. Since Laws 2025, chapter 30, remarriage does not terminate a surviving spouse's eligibility on the educational assistance route. The applicant must be a Minnesota resident student under section 136A.101, subdivision 8, must have completed the FAFSA, must be current on child support under section 136A.121, subdivision 2, clause (5), and must apply before the end of the academic term for which the assistance is sought. Applying after the term ends does not work. Eligibility terminates when the person becomes eligible for benefits under section 135A.52, which is the reduced-tuition provision for students aged 62 and over. Appeals go to the commissioner, who must rule within 30 days of receiving all required documentation, and an approval following an appeal is not retroactive for more than one year or the semester of the original application, whichever is later.