Delays in GI Bill payments from the Veterans Administration forced veterans enrolled at City College to borrow from parents, beg landlords for lenience and consider dropping out, junior Aubrey Arcangel testified at a City Council hearing last week.

“Student veterans were watching the situation develop day-to-day, trying to figure out how long they were able to hold on before they would have to drop out to pay the bills,” said Arcangel, who was among the veteran leaders who pushed for the new GI Bill in Washington last year.

Like many student veterans around the country, those at City College have waited since the beginning of the school year while the VA struggles to process an influx of applications for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which went into effect Aug. 1.

The new GI Bill broadly improves education benefits for recent veterans. Meant to enable anyone who served on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001, to attend college full-time without struggling to pay for it, it increases maximum tuition and living stipends. Instead of a flat rate, it takes location into account for living expenses – a change particularly important in high-cost areas like New York City. A student veteran at City College eligible for maximum benefits should receive $500 each semester for books and $2,744 each month for living expenses, with tuition and fees covered by the VA and the state Veterans Tuition Award.

But delays in payments mean that reality has fallen short of the promise. Adjusting to life as a civilian and a student is a huge transition, Arcangel said, and the GI Bill is supposed to make it easier for new students, not add to their stress. “This is their first semester and they’re having to worry about their finances instead of their studies,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

CCNY student Livia Abreu got out of the military in August, and figured college was the logical option for a 22-year-old who doesn’t want to end up working at McDonald’s. She did everything she was supposed to and received certification for GI Bill benefits this summer, but then the checks didn’t arrive. “I’m counting on this money that I, you know, earned,” she said. “And I don’t have it. I can’t pay my phone bill, I can’t pay my car, I can’t pay my rent.”

Abreu hadn’t expected she’d need to ask her parents for help at this point in her life. She’d paid her own income taxes. She’d been to war.
“Then I come home,” she said, “and I have to be, ‘Hey Mom, can I get $2 for a sandwich?”

In response to similar stories around the country, the VA started handing out $3,000 advance checks on Oct. 2 to veterans awaiting payments. Abreu arrived at the regional office downtown by 7:45 a.m. that day, along with hundreds of other New York veterans. The whole process took a little more than two hours, she said.

“I walked out pretty happy,” she said afterward. “I’m not completely satisfied yet, but it’s progress.”

When the VA announced that emergency checks would be issued, its employees were working overtime to process more than 277,000 applications for the new GI Bill. At that point in late September, the VA had certified more than 200,000 of those veterans for the benefits, but made only 61,000 actual payments to schools and students.

As the VA lagged, City College stepped up. When the money for books didn’t arrive – forcing some veterans to consider dropping classes with expensive books – Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Rodriguez arranged a loan program. The $3,000 emergency checks meant only a couple of veterans needed to take advantage of the offer, but Rodriguez said it’s still important as part of the college’s commitment. “I made it clear to the veterans that if they need the money, it is there for them,” he said.

Accommodating veterans has been a personal cause for Rodriguez, himself an Army veteran. Even before the national changes in benefits, Rodriguez was rallying support within the university administration for better veterans’ services on campus. About 75 veterans attended City College last year; now there are more than 200. More than a dozen are already planning to start spring semester. “It’s definitely increasing, and we just need to be prepared for it,” Rodriguez said.

These days, City College veterans can get information and help from Veterans Affairs Coordinator Welby Alcantara, hired in May, and spend time between classes at a new lounge space designated for veterans. They can join the City College Veterans Association, which Arcangel leads while the president is studying abroad. A year ago, none of those resources existed.

Alcantara said a few veterans did decide to drop classes like physics or calculus, which require books costing more than $100. He’s seen student veterans come into his office stressed to the point of dropping out, convinced they couldn’t stay in school if the bills kept stacking up with no sign of the VA payments. Alcantara said veterans able to get through to the VA to ask about their benefits received the same standard answer: “Four to six weeks.”

“The VA works just like the military: Hurry up and wait,” he said.

The long-anticipated checks started showing up soon after the VA began issuing emergency checks, and by the end of October most City College veterans were waiting nervously for midterm exam results instead of money.

So far, no City College veterans have dropped out.

It’s still frustrating to see veterans in the embarrassing position of asking for loans and favors because the VA wasn’t prepared to process the increase in applications, Arcangel said. He and other veterans who used the older version of the GI Bill learned to expect delays, he said, but the Post-9/11 GI Bill was supposed to change that.

“We served our country and this is a benefit that’s owed to us,” Arcangel said. “We’re not reaching for a handout; this is something that was promised to us.”