Veterans find N.C. residency requirements hinder higher education efforts

Veterans find N.C. residency requirements hinder higher education efforts
Sun Dec 25, 2011
By Paul Woolverton
Staff writer

Staff photo by James Robinson
Johnny N. Allen retired from a 30-year career with the Coast Guard and moved to North Carolina in August. Allen wants to attend Fayetteville State University on the GI Bill to get a degree to become a middle-school math teacher, but he's taking classes at an online school until he's lived here long enough to qualify for in-state tuition.

Military veterans who want to attend college in North Carolina are encountering a roadblock to their plans to further their education: the state's residency laws combined with new restrictions in the GI Bill.

The GI Bill is intended to provide former military personnel with scholarships to get their college degrees. But in August, the GI Bill was changed. It no longer pays out-of-state tuition rates at public universities and community colleges, said Mark Waple, a lawyer who represents the Student Veterans Advocacy Group of North Carolina.

Veterans who haven't become North Carolina residents must make up the difference between the in-state tuition rate and the much higher out-of-state rate until the state accepts them as in-state students.

In North Carolina, that takes a year of living here as a North Carolina resident.

According to data that Waple gathered, about 420 student veterans in the state's 16-campus university system are affected by the change in the GI Bill and the residency restriction.
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