A better educated soldier is very important to the military.
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This is why it takes civilian education credits in order
to get promoted and/or stay in the military.
They also use paying for education as an incentive to get people to join.
Both enlisted and officer. The more credits you have, the further you’ll go.
The skills and education you get from the military will also translate into civilian education credits.
Depending on what job you get in the military will determine how many education credits you will get.
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS CHANGED SINCE IT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.
The confusion on what programs are what is really annoying.
Basically this is how the GI Bill works. During the first twelve months you are in, the military takes out $100.00 dollars a month. This will total $1200.00 dollars. After you serve your four years, get out and enroll full time in college, which is a minimum of 12 credits, you will get $1564.00 dollars a month (current rate in 2013) for 36 months. You only get the money for the months that you are enrolled in class. You don’t get it for summer vacation. If you go to school for 36 straight months, you get it every month. If you go the typical 9 months a year for 4 years, you get it during the school year.
An important thing to know is that this money is only good for 10 years after exiting the service. It must be used within that ten years. For example. If a veteran decides to enroll in school 9 years and 11 months after exiting the service, then he will only get 1 month of payments, which currently is $1564.00 dollars. The rest is lost forever. There are people trying to get that changed.