West Virginia Medal of Honor and Purple Heart Tuition Waiver

West Virginia Code 18B-10-10 is the Medal of Honor and Andrew J. Trail Purple Heart Recipient Tuition Waiver. A state institution of higher education shall waive undergraduate tuition and mandatory fee charges for a West Virginia resident honorably discharged from any branch of the United States Armed Forces who holds the Medal of Honor or a Purple Heart. The part that is routinely misreported is the relationship between the two subdivisions, and it runs the opposite way from how it is usually described. Guidance often says a Purple Heart recipient must have lost a limb or sustained a permanent disability to qualify. That is not what the section says. Both subdivisions are routes in; the difference is how much of your other aid is counted against the waiver. Under subdivision (b)(1), a Medal of Honor or Purple Heart recipient gets a waiver for the amount of tuition and mandatory fees that exceeds the total of any state and federal education benefits, grants, or scholarships received. Every education benefit you hold counts against it. Under subdivision (b)(2), a recipient who also sustained wounds during military combat resulting in a permanent disability or a loss of limb gets a waiver for the amount that exceeds only those state and federal benefits, grants, or scholarships "designated solely for tuition and mandatory fees." Aid that is not earmarked for tuition, such as a living stipend or a general scholarship, no longer reduces the waiver. So the wounded-in-combat route is the more generous calculation, not a gate. A Purple Heart recipient with no permanent disability is still eligible, under (b)(1). The cap is eight semesters. Subsection (d) makes a waiver available for a maximum of eight semesters. One structural point helps in practice. Subsection (c) provides that waivers granted under this section are not counted when determining the maximum number of waivers an institution may grant under 18B-10-5. Institutions ration ordinary tuition waivers against a statutory ceiling; this one sits outside that ceiling, so a financial aid office has no quota reason to refuse it. The waiver covers undergraduate tuition and mandatory fees. It does not cover room, board, or books, and it is a last-dollar benefit in both of its forms, so file your federal aid paperwork first and expect the waiver to be computed on what is left. State residency and an honorable discharge are both required.