As I was honorably discharged from Active duty, I started my undergraduate education 2 month later and attended El Paso Community College and University of Texas El Paso. For the full duration of my courses at EPCC, I was advised explicitly (multiple times over a 2 year period) by the school VA department that since I had the GI Bill, I was unable to use tuition assistance/financial aid, and would therefore have to use my GI Bill Chapter 33 benefit, therefore I did. Partially through my time at UTEP, my sister who worked out of state at a university asked when I was going to use my GI Bill and I told her I already was. She was surprised and asked why I didn't save it and simply use tuition assistance/financial aid to pay for my degree, to which I told her what I was told and she gave me accurate information on how I could have saved my GI Bill and I was given the wrong information.
My goal was to transition the GI Bill to the Post 9-11 GI Bill to pay the full tuition of medical school, however, this was greatly impacted by the information given to me by that department. By the time I made it to the Yale Physician Assistant program, I had on 8 months remaining from the Post 9-11 GI Bill and had to take out Graduate Student loans (to cover tuition, supplies, and living expenses as we were advised not to work during the program) now totaling to the amount of $260,454.05.
October 2014 through August 2018/2019 (undergraduate). The remaining 8 months of the post 9/11 GI Bill was used between 2021-2022 (Graduate Program)
I believe had those departments not lied to me about what I was able to use to pay for school, I would not have the student loan debt since the post 9/11 would have paid for 100% tuition.
After doing research, I found that the school can take retroactive action to restore my GI Bill and use financial assistance that would have paid for my degrees. Something needs to be done as this was a complete violation of my veteran education rights and benefits, more so after having served 7 years on active duty, 2+ Afghanistan deployments and an Honorable Discharge. Has anyone else been in this situation and was able to get back their GI Bill benefits to pay off current student loans? I appreciate any input you all have, thank you.