North Dakota National Guard Tuition Waiver and Grants

North Dakota runs two chapters side by side and they do different things depending on which school the Guard member attends. At a state-controlled school, section 37-07.1-03 entitles a qualifying Guard member to a thirty-five percent waiver of tuition. That figure is worth checking against whatever a reader has been told: much of the published guidance, including the federal benefits libraries and the Department of Veterans Affairs' own mirrored copy of the code, still prints twenty-five percent. The current Century Code says thirty-five. The twenty-five percent figure that appears everywhere belongs to a different chapter, which is probably how the two got crossed. At an accredited postsecondary institution in North Dakota which is not controlled by the state, section 37-07.2-01 does two things. The institution, if it participates in the grant program, must itself waive twenty-five percent of the tuition it would otherwise charge a qualifying Guard member. And the Guard member may receive a grant of up to the cost of tuition and fees for similar courses at whichever North Dakota university system institution has the highest tuition and fee rate. Subsection 5 stops the two being netted against each other in the state's favour: the benchmark figure used to calculate the grant may not be reduced by more than twenty-five percent on account of the 37-07.1-03 waiver. Out of state, and online. Section 37-07.2-01.1 allows a grant of up to one hundred percent of the cost of tuition and fees for similar courses at the highest-rate North Dakota university system institution, for a qualifying Guard member enrolled at an accredited institution located outside the state. Subsection 4 defines "out-of-state" to include any online or remote course of study offered by an accredited institution located outside North Dakota. A Guard member taking an online degree from another state's university is inside this provision, not outside it. Every part of this is conditional on money. The waiver in 37-07.1-03 is expressly "conditioned on the adjutant general having sufficient appropriations for tuition reimbursement", the grants are "subject to legislative appropriation", and the adjutant general reimburses participating state schools within the limits of the appropriation. This is not an entitlement that survives a short biennium. The conditions on the member are continuing rather than one-off. The waiver and the grants are valid only so long as the member maintains satisfactory performance with the Guard, meets the qualification requirements in the adjutant general's rules, and pursues a course of study satisfying the normal requirements of the school. Both chapters put the burden of asking on the member: the application must be completed at the time of enrollment for each semester or academic term, or on initial appointment into the Guard. There is no standing enrollment. "Tuition" is defined in 37-07.1-02 as the normal registration fee, so course fees, program fees and everything else remain payable.