Financing (Veteran Voices)
Financing (Veteran Voices)
Transcript
The Post 9/11 GI Bill is not covering all of my expenses. But it does cover a large majority. And what I would say to that is there is just an immense amount of opportunity, especially, I think, as you get more towards the graduate level, for specific scholarships, whether it's through a military organization or even through the school.
So I've been able, just by having a lack of funds from living the years in the military, not necessarily building up as much capital as some of my peers in different professional pursuits would be. I've found that on the other end, though, there is a lot of consideration given to that. And I've been able to apply for scholarships, whether need based, merit based. And in the end here, my tuition is fully covered.
And on top of that, I'm being paid monthly to go to school. And that covers my rent and basic food and needs. So it's a good life. And it's comfortable. It's not a huge transition in that respect.
I had one semester left. I guess I kind of got lucky, so that even with doing three and a half years, plus the summer courses, with all those semesters, I still had, I don't think it was a full semester's worth of time left. But if you have anything left, the VA will pay. They'll pay for that semester.
So I had X amount of weeks left or something. And that got me one semester of med school funded. Now, I am taking out student loans, like every other medical student.
I used my GI Bill, first part of it, because it's a two-year program. So I used the first two years for my first graduate program. But it didn't cover every expense. And so I worked.
I worked a lot, actually, through my graduate program in a couple of jobs-- graduate assistant, opportunities, work-study opportunities. I was very-- I had a maybe overzealous work ethic at the time. I worked a lot.
But I was-- I had been raised in an independent way, to take care of my finances, to make sure that I was on top of it. And so I made sure that I had all my finances in order when I was in school. And I worked, I think, two or three jobs at one point.
So I've been able, just by having a lack of funds from living the years in the military, not necessarily building up as much capital as some of my peers in different professional pursuits would be. I've found that on the other end, though, there is a lot of consideration given to that. And I've been able to apply for scholarships, whether need based, merit based. And in the end here, my tuition is fully covered.
And on top of that, I'm being paid monthly to go to school. And that covers my rent and basic food and needs. So it's a good life. And it's comfortable. It's not a huge transition in that respect.
I had one semester left. I guess I kind of got lucky, so that even with doing three and a half years, plus the summer courses, with all those semesters, I still had, I don't think it was a full semester's worth of time left. But if you have anything left, the VA will pay. They'll pay for that semester.
So I had X amount of weeks left or something. And that got me one semester of med school funded. Now, I am taking out student loans, like every other medical student.
I used my GI Bill, first part of it, because it's a two-year program. So I used the first two years for my first graduate program. But it didn't cover every expense. And so I worked.
I worked a lot, actually, through my graduate program in a couple of jobs-- graduate assistant, opportunities, work-study opportunities. I was very-- I had a maybe overzealous work ethic at the time. I worked a lot.
But I was-- I had been raised in an independent way, to take care of my finances, to make sure that I was on top of it. And so I made sure that I had all my finances in order when I was in school. And I worked, I think, two or three jobs at one point.