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Effective Fall 2005 Term
House Bill (HB) 815 has been signed by Governor Blagojevich and is now Public Act 94-583. The bill rewrites the Illinois Veteran Grant (IVG) Program as recommended by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR), as well as, changes IVG Program benefits to cover tuition and mandatory fees (rather than those fees currently listed in statute and within the ISAC Administrative Rules). The changes are effective with the fall 2005 term for all IVG eligible students (undergraduate and graduate).
Summary of Changes
The law contains the following changes and/or clarifications for the IVG Program.
Incorporates language for Reservists and Illinois National Guard members called to federal active duty to be eligible for the IVG Program.
Uses the terminology ‘honorable discharge’ in order to be clear that a ‘general discharge under honorable conditions’ is not the same as an ‘honorable discharge.’
The individual must have an ‘honorable discharge’ for each period of service.
Changes the allowable benefits to tuition and mandatory fees rather than the current listing of fees that includes certain allowable fees.
ISAC has prepared an IVG Program Benefits Guide for use in understanding IVG benefits for all recipients and benefits for recipients meeting "grandfathering" requirements.
In order to allow recipients who have previously received benefits for certain allowable fees to complete their programs, they will to continue to receive the benefit of certain allowable fees (in addition to mandatory fees) while they are enrolled in a continuous program of study. They will no longer receive those certain allowable benefits when they fail to enroll for a regular school year term (fall, winter, spring), except for reasons of being called to federal active duty service.
To assist institutions with the timely submission of claims for all IVG eligible students, applicants must notify the school by the end of the school term (the last scheduled date of classes) for which assistance is requested in order to receive IVG benefits for that term. This eliminates the current two-month notification allowance.
Operational Impacts
ISAC will gather additional budget information from schools to implement HB 815 (i.e., mandatory fee charges for graduate level students, etc.).
Summer 2005 term claims should be submitted using 2005-06 tuition and the certain fees historically covered by the IVG Program.
Beginning with the fall 2005 term, claims should be submitted according to the provisions outlined under Tuition and Mandatory Fees since the school has the information necessary to determine when IVG recipients are enrolled in a continuous program of study and when they previously received IVG benefits at that institution (also available on the CD-ROM IVG Master File).
Continue to monitor the Program News page of the IVG Program section for additional information.
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