Veterans and VA Policies

Contact your campus Vet Success Advisor if you change anything on your Initial Certification Request, and submit an online Adjustment Form if you drop or add courses. This can be done at Military & Veterans Admissions

Once classes are certified by NOVA to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, any changes in enrollment may result in you going into Debt Management with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and their benefits being stopped until such a time when the debt is reconciled. 

A Debt Management Letter details any amount that the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs has overpaid. Typically, Debt Management Letters are issued due to a change of enrollment, switching your GI Bill©, or a processing error. If you have specific questions as to why you were sent into overpayment, including specific amounts, please contact the VA at 1.888.442.4551.

If you receive a Debt Management Letter, please visit your local NOVA campus Vet Success Advisor and they will review the letter. An audit of your account can be conducted to determine if a refund is due to either you or the Department of Veterans Affairs. If the audit on your account determines that the debt is a student debt, the portion that was overpaid will be refunded back to your student account by NOVA so you can send those funds back to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. This is in accordance with their policy.

If the amount refunded to your student account for the overpayment does not match up with the amount the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs is collecting from you, please contact the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs at 1.888.442.4551 to determine the cause.

Per the VA Certifying Official Handbook, pages 47-48, remedial and deficiency courses offered as an independent study (online) cannot be approved and cannot be certified to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. These courses are designed to correct deficiencies in basic mathematics, English and reading at the elementary or secondary level. These courses can be certified as part of an approved program, but only for students for whom a verifiable need has been established AND who are taking the course residentially.

No remedial courses taken online can be paid for by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. For NOVA, this includes the following courses: ENF English Courses and MTT courses. The only remedial courses that will be paid are those taken residentially. If you take one of these courses at NOVA residentially, we can certify that class. 

Veterans Affairs Education Benefits will not be affected due to Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) until you are placed on Academic Suspension or Dismissal. If you are on Academic Suspension, you must see your academic or retention counselor. The NOVA policy for academic probation states that you cannot take more than 8 credits for that semester, and that is ONLY what will be certified by the VA. If you are on Academic Dismissal, you cannot register for courses and are therefore unable to utilize your Veterans Benefits.

In order to have a course certified for VA benefits at another school, the parent school must issue a Parent Letter to NOVA’s School Certifying Officials. This can be done by completing the online Veterans Enrollment Request Form and submitting the parent letter to veteranmilitaryservices@nvcc.edu.

Please go to this link: Online Certification

According to the VA, after a GI Bill® payment has been released to the school for the certified period of enrollment, the GI Bill cannot be terminated in order to conserve entitlement. Payment is typically released to the school within the two weeks prior to the start date of the course; however, this timeframe is not guaranteed and is beyond the control of NOVA. If you do not wish to use your GI Bill in a given semester after it has already been processed, you must contact your local NOVA’s School Certifying Officials and clearly state your desire to have your GI Bill certification terminated for a specific enrollment. After it is confirmed that payment has not been released by the VA, a certifying official will proceed with terminating your certifications.

In circumstances where payment has already been released, please note there are exceptions that may allow us to terminate your certifications, outlined below.

• You drop course(s) in the term.
• You withdraw from or receive an FN in course(s) in the term.
• You receive Federal Tuition Assistance for the same course(s).

Per the 2014 Department of Defense Memorandum of Understanding, Federal Tuition Assistance and Veterans Affairs benefits cannot be used to pay for the same course(s). Students using Post-9/11 GI Bill© are the only exception to this policy. These students may use their Veterans Education Benefits to cover the remaining balance for courses not completely covered by Federal Tuition Assistance. In this case, GI Bill funding can only be used to pay the remaining balance between the amount of funding from Tuition Assistance and 100 percent of the tuition charged by the college.

Military students at NOVA are eligible to receive the in-state rate as long as they have proof of residency in Virginia or military orders stationing them in the state. Eligible military students are charged the contract rate, which is equal to the Tuition Assistance per credit hour rate for all branches. Tuition Assistance funding typically pays 100 percent of the tuition for military students, so GI Bill funding is not required.

Students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill will have their enrollment certified with the VA will have all tuition and fees covered as long as they are rated at an eligibility rate of 100 percent. Students below that percentage are responsible for paying the difference in tuition before the payment deadline date prior to the start of each semester. In addition to the tuition and fees, a student will be entitled to Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) for the rate of E-5 with dependents in the Military Housing Area for the Washington DC Metro Area that will last for the duration of the course(s). Students should keep in mind that Active Duty students and their spouses are not eligible to receive BAH from their GI Bill benefits.

Service members may also be able to use GI Bill benefits concurrently with federal Tuition Assistance through Top-Up. The Top-Up benefit may only be used with the Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Bill: Active Duty, to receive from the VA those tuition costs that exceed, or are not authorized in, the amount of TA provided to the service member by his or her military branch. The concurrent use of GI Bill benefits and TA will never exceed 100 percent of the actual costs of tuition.

The Post 9/11 GI Bill does not have a Top-Up option. However, the VA does allow students to combine these two benefits as long as the tuition does not exceed 100 percent. For example, if a student is approved for $250 in tuition assistance, $500 could be certified under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This payment would be sent directly to the school and applied to the student account based on the percentage of eligibility. For more information about the Post-9/11 GI Bill, please see the Post-9/11 GI Bill web page.

Students eligible for Veterans Education Benefits will have their enrollment certified with the VA. If Federal Tuition Assistance is applied toward a course that is certified afterwards, the certification for Veterans Benefits will be either amended (Post-9/11) to account for the Tuition Assistance, or terminated (all other GI Bill chapters) in accordance with the 2014 Department of Defense Memorandum of Understanding.

The Virginia State Approving Agency (SAA), is the approving authority of education and training programs for Virginia.  Their office investigates complaints of GI Bill® beneficiaries.  While most complaints should initially follow the school grievance policy, if the situation cannot be resolved at the school, the beneficiary should contact the SAA office via email at saa@dvs.virginia.gov.

The term VA Form 22-1999 refers to your electronic enrollment certification that the Office of Military Affairs submits to the Department of Veteran Affairs. This certification reports your hours and term of enrollment to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and will then determine the amounts that can be paid for your course(s) through your benefit. When an enrollment certification is submitted or adjusted, you will always be notified by email to your NOVA email account.

If you are receiving the Montgomery GI Bill® (Ch. 30 or 1606) or the Reserve Education Assistance Program (Ch. 1607), you will use Web Automated Verification of Enrollment (WAVE) or you can call the toll-free Interactive Voice Response telephone line at 877.VA.ECERT (877.823.2378) to verify their attendance on a monthly basis. This is required for the VA to issue payment to you. If you are receiving the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Ch. 33), Survivors’ and Dependents’ Education Assistance (Ch. 35) or Vocational Rehabilitation (Ch. 31) benefits, you do not need to verify your attendance.

NOTE: The WAVE and IVR systems do not update account information instantly. Instead, verifications and other submissions are stored and processed manually. If WAVE does not reflect your current enrollment status, it is most likely because the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has not processed the current enrollment certification (VA Form 22-1999). The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is often overwhelmed with enrollments each semester and it takes at least 8-12 weeks to process everyone's changes.