Since 2009 when the “New GI Bill” also known as Post 9/11 (Chapter 33) became effective the way payments are made for VA education benefits has changed. Under the new program VA sends a tuition/fee payment directly to the school and in some cases an overpayment occurs. Overpayment can occur in a variety of ways; if you drop a class, change your class schedule or if your eligibility or entitlement changes mid-semester are among the most common reasons student-veterans at MSU experience an overpayment.
In order to mitigate payment delays and common billing issues for our Post 9/11 recipients Missouri State University uses a third-party billing system which “pre-pays” your tuition and handles all VA tuition/fee payments. This system allows consistency in payments for our Post 9/11 recipients but limits our ability to send refunds directly to students using this benefit when you drop a class during the refund schedule. If the VA determines that an overpayment has been made for tuition/fees because of a dropped class you may receive a debt letter from VA requesting that you send a portion or all of your tuition payment back to VA. If you do not make arrangements to pay this debt they can and will withhold your BAH or in some cases your social security/disability compensation until the debt has been satisfied.
The easiest and most effective way to handle these tuition/fee debt letters is to provide a copy of the letter to our office.We can investigate the debt on your behalf and in many cases pay the tuition/fee debt for you before they begin deducting your personal payments. Our third-party billing system makes it difficult to get refunds to you but overpayments can be returned to VA. You should recieve two letters, one from St. Louis Regional Processing Office and a second from Debt Management Center in St. Paul, MN. When you receive both letters please bring them to Carrington Hall 314. Before our school can send any money back to VA we must have both letters (one has a tear off slip) on file.
It is important that you keep your mailing address up to date with VA and ensure that you open all letters from VA so that debts can be handled in a timely manner. If you ever have questions regarding a debt with VA you can contact our office. We’re happy to help in anyway that we can!