Courtesy of Military.com

In July of 2008 the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill was signed as a law, the bill took effect on Aug. 1 2009, with more than 277,000 soldiers applying to receive their well earned educational benefits. The Post 9/11 G.I. Bill offers an abundance of assistance to veterans. According to the V.A. the maximum a benefit provides is the entire cost of tuition and fees for service members who have completed at least 90 days of collected service, monthly housing allowances, yearly books and supplies, plus a stipend up to $1,000. The Yellow Ribbon Program is a branch off of the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill, it was established to help service members to cover the cost of tuition that exceeds the amount of the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition rate. Of the 277,000 awaiting applicants, about 200,000 have been approved, but, as of Sept. 28, only 61,000 had received a check in the mail. Forbes magazine quotes Veterans Affair Secretary Eric Shinseki in an article saying that veterans had a right to complain and his department would try to set things right by issuing emergency checks of up to $3,000 to veterans whose payments were delayed.

“We are stuck in a battle between the V.A. and the school,” says Brandy Brown to Forbes.com. According to statistics on the V.A.’s website, it takes up to 35 days to process a claim. To help with the overwhelming amount of applications the Department of Veteran’s Affairs has hired more than 700 extra staff members. Representative Steve Buyer of Indiana told the Air Force Times that this situation was foreseeable and could have been prevented. Between the dates of November 27^th-29^th the V.A. posted on their G.I. Bill website that more than 6,500 payments had been processed.