Montana Scholarship for Purple Heart and Higher Medal Recipients

Section 10-2-118 creates a state scholarship for a recipient of the Purple Heart or a higher medal for combat-related service, administered by the Montana Board of Veterans' Affairs. It is $1,000, and an eligible recipient may receive one scholarship a year for each year they meet the criteria. The eligibility test has four parts and the fourth is the one that catches people out. The applicant must hold the Purple Heart or a higher combat decoration, verified by a DD 214 or other authentic discharge form listing awards. They must not have received a dishonorable or other than honorable discharge, which means a general discharge is fine here. They must be a Montana resident. And they must already have completed a full academic year, full-time or part-time, at an accredited Montana public university, public vocational or technical school, or tribal college, either before or after military service, with a grade point average of at least 2.5 on a 4.0 scale, and have re-enrolled to continue. This is not a scholarship for a first-year student. Subsection (4)(b) is the exclusion nobody prints. A student who has no out-of-pocket tuition costs because they are receiving VA education benefits is not eligible. A Purple Heart recipient on the Post-9/11 GI Bill at 100 percent, with tuition paid in full to a Montana public institution, is disqualified by that alone. The scholarship is aimed at the gap after federal benefits, in the same way the Honorably Discharged Veteran tuition waiver is. The money is rationed. Subsection (6) says the scholarship may be paid only to the extent funding is available and that awards are paid in the order applications are received. The institution, not the student, verifies eligibility and applies to the Board, and the money is then given to the student as a voucher applicable to tuition, books, transportation or housing. The voucher form is worth noting: it is broader than tuition and can go to housing and transport. There is no disability rating anywhere in this section. It is a decoration benefit.