West Virginia War Orphan Education Program (repealed in 2025)

This entry records a conflict rather than a benefit, because a family relying on the published descriptions would be relying on a repealed statute. Article 19 of chapter 18 of the West Virginia Code, "Educational Opportunities for Children and Spouses of Deceased Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen," was the War Orphan Education Program. It provided a tuition waiver at state institutions and a modest cash allowance administered by the Department of Veterans Assistance. House Bill 3192 of the 2025 regular session repealed it. The act passed March 31, 2025 and took effect ninety days from passage, on June 29, 2025. Its title is "AN ACT to repeal ... relating to repeal of antiquated, inoperative, conflicting and duplicative provisions of code," and it repealed roughly a hundred sections across chapters 18 and 18B in one pass. Sections 18-19-1, 18-19-2, 18-19-3, and 18-19-4 are named in the repealing clause, which is the whole of the article. The Code now shows each of them as repealed. Nothing in that act re-enacted the program elsewhere. It is a pure repeal act. Two official sources still describe the program as current. The Department of Veterans Assistance education benefits page lists a "West Virginia War Orphan Program" under state benefit opportunities, describes a tuition and fee waiver at any West Virginia public institution beyond what Chapter 35 Dependents' Educational Assistance and the Fry Scholarship pay, states that eligible students "will receive up to $1,000 per semester, to a maximum of $2,000 per year, for expenses from the West Virginia Department of Veterans Assistance," and links an application. The federal Army benefits library lists the same program with the same figures, an age range of sixteen to twenty-five, and a mailing address to send applications to. What to do with that. Do not treat the program as gone on this entry's say-so, and do not treat it as available on theirs. The statutory authority is repealed; whether the department is still administering something under appropriation or under a rule is a question only the department can answer. Call a Department of Veterans Assistance service officer before building a plan around it, and ask specifically what authority the payment is being made under now that article 19 is repealed. The alternative to look at in the meantime is West Virginia Code 18B-10-7, which is live and which waives tuition and fees at every state institution for the child or spouse of a National Guard member, reserve member, or person on federal or state active duty who was a West Virginia resident and was killed in the line of duty. That section has its own entry. It is narrower than the war orphan program was, because it requires a line-of-duty death rather than reaching the children of veterans who died later of service-connected causes, but it is unambiguously in force. The legislature's own characterization of the repealed sections was "antiquated, inoperative, conflicting and duplicative," which suggests the program may have been dormant well before 2025. That is a reading of the bill title, not a finding, and it does not resolve what the department is doing today.