veteran services faq

make an appointment with your academic advisor as early as you can before each registration. you will want to be ready to go when priority registration opens.

first, you will need to make sure that the registrar’s office has received official copies of all of your transcripts, including your military transcript. this is not optional. the academic catalog corresponding to the year of your first lipscomb enrollment lists the courses you must complete to fulfill the requirements of your major. if using any type of military-related aid, you can only take courses that are required for you to graduate. for example, if you are an accounting major, va will not pay for you to take private voice lessons, as this is not required for your major. you should have an academic advisor, but it is your responsibility to know and complete your degree requirements.

after your initial application for educational benefits has been completed and you have given the school a copy of your certificate of eligibility (coe), you will need to submit a certification request form (crf) each semester. a link to the crf can be found in the signature block of anyone in our office or it can be found here. as a reminder, you will need to submit a new crf every time you register for classes and any time you add or drop classes. this is what triggers us to report your enrollment information to va.

here is a link to a video that will give you step-by-step instructions.

it is your responsibility to keep track of your remaining benefits each semester to ensure that your tuition charges are paid.

if you are a veteran, your remaining entitlement can be viewed by going to the va ebenefits website and following the prompts to the educational benefits tab. for all gi bill® students, this information can be found in the last paragraph of your most recent award letter or by calling the va student helpline at 1-888-442-4551.

students wishing to use any form of va education benefit must complete a certification request form (crf) after he or she has registered for classes. for the fall semester, your crf is due no later than july 31st. for the spring semester, your crf is due no later than the friday before thanksgiving.

if you make changes to your schedule after submitting your certification request form (crf), you will need to submit a new crf and select “adding the following” or “dropping the following,” as appropriate. you may have to repay va for dropped courses or classes that you stop attending. please contact the veteran services office prior to dropping a course.

the department of veterans affairs will process your benefits as quickly as possible, but this can take several weeks, depending on their workload. for new beneficiaries, they tell us to tell you 30-60 days. once processed, va will back-pay you to the beginning of the term. it is always wise to have a “plan b’ for the beginning of each semester.

post 9/11 gi bill® recipients should receive both a monthly housing allowance (mha) and a book allowance. students using other types of gi bill® benefits will receive one monthly payment, out of which you will need to pay your expenses, including books and tuition.

va will pay the school directly for tuition and allowable fees if you are using the post 9/11 gi bill® or chapter 31 vocational readiness & employment (vre) benefits.  all others will need to pay the school using their monthly payments from va.

the only benefit that pays the school for books is chapter 31 vre. all others must pay the school out of their monthly payment or book allowance, if applicable. vre students will need to contact the on-campus bookstore to sign their receipts. the bookstore will invoice vre for your books; therefore, your book charges should not be put on your lipscomb account. post 9/11 gi bill® students should plan to pay for books out of pocket their first semester, and save the book allowance, once received, for the next semester.

you will continue to get a bill from the school until all charges are paid. check first to see if you have other charges on your account such as books or fees not covered by va. if you are using the post 9/11 gi bill® or vre benefits, we will post an estimated va payment on your account once we have the proper documentation. for post 9/11 students, we will need your certificate of eligibility and your certification request form. for vre students, we will need an authorization form (purchase order) from your veterans resource counselor (vrc).

once you have completed all of the required paperwork for both va and the veteran services office, and have submitted your certification request form (crf), it may depend on when you submitted your crf. did you submit your crf before the deadline? the school and va both process certifications in the order received and processing times can depend on the workload. you may also still need to do your monthly self-verification.

at the end of every month, va requires most gi bill® recipients to verify that they are still enrolled in school before va will release each monthly payment. this does not apply to vre and some chapter 35 recipients. if you need instructions, please contact our office. word of caution, if you are doing your self-verification at the end of may and your spring semester ended may 9, you will still need to answer “yes” regarding still being enrolled as previously certified because you did attend to the end of that term.

if the month was a partial month, va will prorate the payment. for example, if a fall semester begins on august 26, your monthly payment will only be for the four days between august 26 and august 30. va pays based on a 30 day month. you can divide your full monthly payment by 30 to get your daily rate.

the post 9/11 gi bill® is set up to pay a different rate for students who are enrolled entirely online.  the rate is ½ of the national average. unfortunately, students who are taking a combination of on-campus (resident) and online (distance) classes sometimes also get caught by this requirement if they are only attending online classes for a portion of the semester. hybrid classes count as resident classes.

if you have added a class, dropped a class, or stopped attending a class, the school will need to report these actions to va. for each of these situations, you will need to submit a new crf to notify our office of the changes. if none of those apply, it is probably just a notification that we have completed your dual certification.

va requires us to submit enrollment information in 2 steps. in the first step, we will submit everything except the final tuition and fees. after the 100% refund period ends for each class, we will go back in to complete step 2, reporting the final tuition and fees and either the changes that have been made or that there have been no changes. you are always welcome to call us for clarification.

this is a complicated question. for academic and financial aid purposes, 12 hours is full-time for undergraduate students and 6 hours is full-time for graduate students. for students using gi bill® benefits, however, va does va math. va does not look at full-time status by semester. va looks at each individual “term,” which is each unique set of beginning and ending dates for each class. for students taking classes that all last the whole semester, va will see that as one term and the above full-time hours would apply. for all other “non-standard terms,” va will count the days of that “term” and apply their formula to calculate how many hours it will take to be full-time.

if you are taking a combination of full-term and shorter classes, va will calculate your status for each “term” using va math. if you are taking one class that lasts the whole semester and one that only lasts 8 weeks, when the shorter class ends, you might fall below full-time. for post 9/11 gi bill® students, you must be greater than half-time to get any monthly housing allowance (mha) and va will prorate your mha if you are less than full-time.

for summer terms, it gets really complicated; so,  you may want to check with us before you finalize your schedule.

if you fail a class because of a lack of attendance, you will most likely have to repay va for some or all of that class. for post 9/11 gi bill® recipients, you may also have to repay a portion of your housing and book allowances. 

if you completed the class and still failed, you will not have to repay va. you may repeat a course if it is required for your degree program, and va will pay for it a second time. 

if you are using strong act or federal tuition assistance, failing a class for any reason will result in you having to pay for that class out of pocket.

if you drop, withdraw, or stop attending a class after the 100% refund deadline, you will owe the school for any portion of the class(es) that va does not cover. this may also affect any other financial aid you are receiving.