Minnesota / State / 2026 Regular Session

Laws of Minnesota 2026, chapter 49 Rewrote the survivor education benefit, repealed the POW/MIA section, and deleted the veteran’s own $750 grant

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Signed 2026-04-21

Rebuilt Minn. Stat. 197.75. The waiver at Minnesota public postsecondary institutions now covers tuition and fees rather than tuition alone, and eligible institutions now include Tribally controlled colleges. The residency test for a deceased veteran, which had required Minnesota residence within six months of entering service or for the six months before death, was removed. Section 197.752 was repealed outright and prisoner of war and missing in action families were folded into 197.75, replacing a $250-a-year private institution payment frozen since the 1970s with the full package, and the rule that a change of circumstance including the return or reported death of the POW or MIA does not remove eligibility was carried across. The one-time $750 payment to a veteran who had exhausted federal educational benefits was deleted along with the whole “eligible veteran” definition. The stipend is now awarded on a funds-available basis, and section 197.75 was added to the Minnesota GI Bill appropriation in 197.791, subd. 8 without raising its $6,000,000 annual ceiling. Tracked because every published description of Minnesota veteran education assistance still lists the $750 veteran grant, and because adding a programme to a capped appropriation without raising the cap changes what the other programme can pay.