Montana National Guard Tuition Waiver

A student who is a member of the Montana National Guard, Army or Air, is eligible for a tuition waiver at Montana University System campuses for undergraduate or graduate study. The waiver has run in this form since the fall semester of 2020. The conditions are membership and standing rather than service history. The student must have applied for the waiver and be a bona fide member of the Guard no later than the third week of the first semester for which the waiver is requested, must be certified as a member in good standing, and must maintain satisfactory academic progress under the campus's federal financial aid standard. Board of Regents Policy 940.13 puts the certification in the Adjutant General's hands. The provision worth knowing is the residency one. Policy 940.13 says that Montana National Guard members who do not meet the residency requirements in Board Policy 940.1 are still eligible, and the University System explains the mechanics: the nonresident Guard member is given in-state tuition status for the purpose of applying the waiver. A Guard member who has not lived in Montana long enough to be a resident student is not shut out, and is not left paying the nonresident differential either. What is waived is tuition and nothing else. Fees, program charges and flat fee courses are outside it, and registration and building fees may never be waived under this policy. It is a last dollar award. The waiver covers the tuition balance remaining after every federal, state and private grant and scholarship has been applied, so a Guard member with substantial grant aid may find the waiver amounts to little. The corollary is worth saying to a student who is discouraged by that: the waiver is not reduced by the federal Tuition Assistance or GI Bill entitlement the student chooses not to use, but it is reduced by grants and scholarships they do receive. No combination of waivers or discounts may exceed the total tuition the campus charges. This waiver and the Honorably Discharged Veteran waiver are different programs with opposite conditions. The Guard waiver requires current service; the veteran waiver requires that federal education benefits have already run out. A Guard member who separates and later enrolls moves from one to the other, and the second one is only open once the GI Bill is gone.