Wisconsin Veterans Education (VetEd) Reimbursement Grant

Section 45.20 runs a tuition reimbursement program administered by the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, known as VetEd. It is different from the GI Bill remission in three ways: it is means tested, it pays after the fact, and it reaches schools the remission does not. Means tested first. The annual income of the veteran and the veteran's spouse may not exceed $50,000, plus $1,000 for each dependent in excess of two dependents. The department verifies reported income. That threshold is not indexed in the statute and it is the condition that excludes most working veterans. Paid after the fact second. A veteran is reimbursed upon satisfactory completion of an undergraduate semester or course, not in advance. A veteran must front the tuition and claim it back, which is a real cash flow problem for the population the income limit selects for. Reaching further third. The program covers enrolment at any institution of higher education in the state, at a school approved under 45.03(11), at a proprietary school approved under 440.52, at a public or private high school, at a tribal school in any grade from 9 to 12, and at an institution where the veteran receives a waiver of nonresident tuition under a reciprocity agreement. High school and tribal school coverage is unusual and matters for a veteran completing secondary education. It even reaches outside Wisconsin in two narrow cases. A resident veteran may be reimbursed for correspondence courses or part-time classroom study from an institution outside the state where the part-time study is not offered within 50 miles of the veteran's residence and the institution is not more than 50 miles beyond the Wisconsin boundary, or where the correspondence course is not offered in this state at all. Residency is a two-part test with a useful carry-over. The veteran must be a resident at the time of application and must have been a Wisconsin resident at entry into service, or a resident for any consecutive 12-month period after entry and before the application. The statute then says that once a person has satisfied the 12-consecutive-month requirement, the department may not require them to re-establish it when they later apply for any other chapter 45 benefit that requires that residency. Establishing it once establishes it for the chapter. The hard exclusion is the degree. A veteran is not eligible if the veteran already has an undergraduate degree from any institution of higher education. Not a Wisconsin degree, any degree. A veteran retraining after a first career is outside this program and should look at the retraining grant in 45.21 instead. Part-time classroom study means no more than 11 semester credits, or enrolment during a summer semester or session.