South Carolina In-State Tuition for a Veteran and Dependents

Section 59-112-50 does three separate things and they reach three different groups. Subsection (A) covers the serving member. During the period of their assignment to duty in South Carolina, members of the Armed Services stationed in South Carolina and their dependents are eligible for in-state tuition rates. When the member is ordered away from the State, the dependents keep in-state rates so long as they remain continuously enrolled at the institution they were enrolled at when the assignment ended, or transfer to an eligible institution during the term or semester immediately following, excluding summer terms. The receiving institution must verify the previous institution's residency decision, and the transferring student carries the burden of producing the documents for both decisions. The same subsection carries a separate route to in-state rates after discharge: a member and dependents are eligible after discharge even if they were not enrolled at a state institution at the time, "if they have evidenced an intent to establish domicile in South Carolina and if they have resided in South Carolina for a period of at least twelve months immediately preceding their discharge." Subsection (B) lets an institution charge active duty military personnel less than the resident undergraduate rate for distance courses regardless of residency, and defines active duty military personnel to include active duty guardsmen and active duty reservists. Subsection (C) is the federal Choice Act implementation and it is the important one. A "covered individual" enrolled in a public institution of higher education and receiving educational assistance under Chapter 30, Chapter 31 or Chapter 33 of Title 38 is entitled to pay in-state tuition and fees "without regard to the length of time the covered individual has resided in this State". Covered individual is defined in five clauses. A veteran who served ninety days or longer on active duty in the uniformed services, their reserve forces, or the National Guard. A person entitled to and receiving assistance under 38 U.S.C. 3319 by virtue of a relationship to that veteran, which is a transferee of Post-9/11 entitlement. A person using transferred benefits under Section 3319 while the transferor is on active duty. A person entitled to and receiving assistance under Section 3311(b)(9), which is the Fry Scholarship. And a person entitled to and receiving assistance under Section 3102(a), which is Chapter 31 veteran readiness and employment. Note the ninety days. It is service, not a discharge characterisation and not a rating, and unlike the federal rule the state clause does not require the veteran to have been discharged, so a member still serving is inside it. Chapter 31 was added by 2019 Act No. 10. Two drafting points in subsection (C) are worth knowing if an institution reads it literally. Subsection (C)(1) names assistance under "Chapter 30, Chapter 31, and Chapter 33", with "and" where only "or" makes sense; nobody draws all three at once, and the federal rule below makes the point moot. And clause (d) points at 38 U.S.C. 3311(b)(9) for the Fry Scholarship. Congress moved the Fry Scholarship to section 3311(b)(8) in 2017 (Public Law 115-48), and since 2021 (Public Law 116-315) paragraph (b)(9) has been the separate entitlement for the child or spouse of a member who died in the line of duty on duty other than active duty. Read literally, the state clause now names the reserve-component survivor and omits the original Fry Scholar. Federal law sets the floor under all of this, and it is now wider than the state list. 38 U.S.C. 3679(c) requires every public institution to charge the in-state rate, as a condition of VA approval, to a covered individual living in the state and using Chapter 30, 31, 33 or 35 assistance, or Chapter 1606 assistance for academic periods beginning on or after August 1, 2026 under Public Law 119-55. The federal covered individuals are a veteran discharged or released after at least ninety days of active service, a Fry Scholar under section 3311(b)(8), a transferee of Post-9/11 entitlement from a veteran or a serving member, a Chapter 31 participant, a Chapter 35 survivor or dependent, and a Chapter 1606 Selected Reserve member. Chapter 35 and Chapter 1606 users are not in Section 59-112-50(C) at all, but a South Carolina public institution that wants its courses approved for VA benefits has to charge them the resident rate anyway. Since August 1, 2021 the federal rule has had no window after discharge either (Public Law 116-315, section 1005). The federal rule allows an institution to require a showing of intent to establish residency by means other than physical presence, and like the state rule it requires the student to be living in the state. The limit that was removed is the one to watch for in older material. Until 2021, subsection (C) required the veteran or dependent to enroll within three years of the veteran's discharge. 2021 Act No. 29 deleted that three-year language from clauses (a) and (b) and deleted the whole of subsection (C)(4), which had carried the enrollment deadline. A veteran ten years out of uniform, using Post-9/11 entitlement at a South Carolina public institution, pays in-state rates today. Any guide that still prints a three-year window is describing the law as it stood before May 6, 2021. One condition survives and it is easy to trip over: Section 59-112-50(C)(3) requires that "a covered individual must live in this State while enrolled at the in-state institution." The waiver removes the durational residency test, not the requirement to actually live here. A wholly online student living in another state is not covered by subsection (C). Section 59-112-80 puts the burden of proving eligibility on the student, and Section 59-112-90 makes a wilful misrepresentation an offence.