A new online calculation tool has been created to help veterans and active duty military members assess the value of universities and their education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

The tool is a collaborative effort between College Factual, a data-driven education technology company, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The GI calculator allows veterans to make the most out of their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits by comparing the cost after benefits of more than 4,000 colleges. Based on the veteran’s individual information, it calculates the college’s sticker price, the veteran’s benefits and the school’s average Yellow Ribbon Award.

“Our mission is to help every student get the best education money can buy,” said Josh McWilliam, co-founder and vice president of Product for College Factual who led the team that created the calculator.

Syracuse University is a Yellow Ribbon School, which means that all tuition and fees for veterans or their dependents are 100 percent covered. The university also has veterans and dependents on other programs who receive financial support from the government, said Patrick Jones, director of veteran enrollment practice at SU.

SU’s Veterans Resource Center staff ensures that veterans and their designated dependents receive every benefit they are authorized to receive, Jones said.

The calculator also determines additional benefits including room and board, military housing allowance, books and supplies and military book stipend. The end result is an estimate of the veteran’s total out-of-pocket cost if they were to attend the school, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill is for military personnel who were on active duty service at least 90 days after Sept. 10, 2001, were honorably discharged at least 30 days after this date or are still on active duty, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website. The GI Bill provides up to 36 months of education benefits and covers full tuition and fees for all public, in-state students and has a national maximum cap rate for private and international schools.

The GI calculator takes into account the GI Bill, but not other benefits veterans may receive.

“Some of the information on (the GI calculator) is inaccurate, which could mislead potential students, so we will reach out to the creators and ask them to correct it,” Jones said.

Robert Pugh, the assistant resident director at Flint Hall who served in the U.S. Marines for eight and a half years, said his initial reaction was that the GI calculator was a “very helpful tool,” but after using it he didn’t think it was as thorough as it should be.

“The numbers we see as veterans versus what was on that calculator could be misleading for somebody coming into this thinking that they’re going to receive a certain amount of money for coming to this school and then having to pay a different amount,” Pugh said after inputting his own data.

The new GI Bill calculator builds on a former initiative by IAVA, but this partnership with College Factual has incorporated data, college rankings, school comparison, financial aid advice and insight as to whether the school is veteran-friendly.

“We don’t provide a search tool; we do matching, unlike other tools which treat veterans as one-dimensional,” McWilliam said. “We will allow them to take all the information and see what truly is the best match for them.”

McWilliam sees his development as a quality tool that can make the process manageable and transparent for the underserved veteran population.

He added that he is aware of the improvements that need to be made to the tool and plans on continuing to update it.

“Many features did not make the cut for the first release, however, we are expecting an update in a couple weeks with a new user interface,” McWilliam said.

Published on October 6, 2015 at 10:02 pm

Contact Stacy: sfern100@syr.edu | @StacyFernandezB