Wyoming National Guard Educational Assistance

Wyoming Statutes 19-9-501 through 504 provide educational assistance to members of the Wyoming National Guard, covering 100 percent of resident tuition at the University of Wyoming or a Wyoming community college for up to two degrees. At a private institution the benefit is capped at $1,500 per semester. Two degrees is unusually generous. Most state Guard tuition programs cap at one degree or at a number of credit hours. A Wyoming Guard member can complete an associate and a bachelor's degree, or a bachelor's and a master's, on the state's account. The conditions are current service rather than disability: completion of basic training, good standing in the Guard, and maintaining a 2.0 grade point average. The transfer provision is the part worth planning a career around. A service member may transfer one degree's worth of benefit to a dependent after completing a six-year enlistment and a four-year reenlistment. That is ten years of service, which is a long commitment, but for a Guard member who intends to serve anyway it converts into a child's degree. There is no disability rating requirement. Wyoming's Guard members should look at this alongside the federal tuition assistance available through the Guard and the Montgomery GI Bill Selected Reserve under Chapter 1606. They are separate entitlements and the unit education office can advise on sequencing so that one is not wasted. A Guard member who later deploys and earns a campaign medal may also become eligible for the separate Wyoming Veterans Tuition Benefit, which is covered in its own entry. The two are distinct programs with distinct tests, and being eligible for one says nothing about the other.