Military Veteran Students in Vermont Left Without Benefits for Months After Paperwork Error

Dozens of military veterans in Vermont were left in the lurch after they did not receive funds that were necessary to pay for their college tuition, thanks to a paperwork error.

Around 200 students attending Vermont State University (VTSU) receive Veterans Association benefits, based on military service or other connections to the armed forces.

Typically, students receive both tuition payments and a stipend for living expenses. However, as the fall semester winds down, the usual benefits still haven’t arrived, according to the Burlington Free Press.

"That's a hit. That is your mortgage for a lot of people," Army veteran Wolf Whitney told the Burlington Free Press. "And Christmas is coming, that's a lot."

The issue is partially the result of the relatively recent formation of VTSU – a single university that was founded last summer when three older colleges were consolidated. 

"As you know, there has been a delay in the Federal Veterans Administration evaluation of our new merged Vermont State University," the university told students in a December 8 letter. 

"This delay was caused by an error with the State of Vermont’s submission when they submitted the Vermont State University paperwork earlier this year."

While the university reportedly knew this would be an issue in July, students weren’t aware until after the semester began in September. 

Army veteran Julie Rinaldi said that her VA advisor discouraged her from attending VTSU because the facility code needed to apply for university-specific veteran’s benefits did not exist.

“We worked hard and we suffered to get these benefits,” she told the Burlington Free Press. “The school is making false promises and misleading students.”

Some students even reported that they were struggling to afford food and housing on top of the unexpected school expenses, prompting an intervention from the university itself.

"Normally, the institution wouldn’t be in the middle of this at all, but students communicated to us that they were struggling to pay rent and eat," Katherine Levasseur, VTSU's spokesperson told the Burlington Free Press. 

“These extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures and we stepped in to provide the emergency loans.”

The loans were intended to make up the difference from the lost benefits but some students were concerned that it could put them in a worse situation if their VA payments were delayed even longer, according to the Burlington Free Press.

Students are now expected to receive retroactive payments from the federal government which says it received the information needed to disperse the money on December 8. The VA has not yet given an explicit reason for why the initial mistake was made, according to the Burlington Free Press.