The Forever GI Bill (Colmery Act): What Changed for Post-9/11 Veterans

What the Forever GI Bill (Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act) is

The Forever GI Bill is the popular name for the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017, Public Law 115-48. It was signed into law on August 16, 2017 by President Trump after passing the House by 405-0 and the Senate by unanimous consent. The statute is named for Harry W. Colmery, the former American Legion National Commander who drafted the original Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 on Mayflower Hotel letterhead in Washington, D.C.

The 2017 law is best understood as a series of targeted patches on the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the program codified at Chapter 33 of Title 38, U.S. Code. Each section addresses a specific friction point that had emerged in the decade since Chapter 33 took effect in August 2009. You can read the bill text directly at congress.gov and the VA's implementation summary at the Forever GI Bill page on VA.gov.

Who qualifies for no delimiting date

The signature provision of the Colmery Act, the one that gave the bill its “Forever” nickname, is Section 107. It eliminated the 15-year delimiting date that had previously applied to Chapter 33 benefits. The catch is that the elimination is not retroactive to all veterans. It applies only to those who meet the separation-date threshold.

For service members who separated before January 1, 2013, the original 15-year delimiting date still applies. That cohort still has the well-known exceptions to lean on, including the no-expiration rule for veterans discharged due to a service-connected disability. We cover the full mechanics in the longer treatment at Understanding the Delimiting Date: A Complete Guide, and walk through the full Chapter 33 entitlement structure at the Chapter 33 resource hub.

Dependents and the Fry Scholarship

Section 102 broadened Fry Scholarship eligibility to include surviving spouses of servicemembers killed on active duty after September 10, 2001. Coupled with Section 107, that means a surviving spouse on a qualifying Fry case carries full Chapter 33 entitlement and no expiration window. For dependents enrolled under transferred entitlement, the delimiting date follows the transferor: if the transferor has no expiration, neither does the dependent.

Reservist eligibility paths

Section 109 cleaned up an awkward gap created when the Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP) sunset on November 25, 2015. Reservists and Guard members who had performed qualifying active-duty service under 10 U.S.C. 12301(h), the authority used for medical care while on duty, can now have that time count toward Chapter 33 eligibility. We unpack the practical certification side of this in our breakdown of recent VA regulatory updates.

What didn't change (entitlement caps, MHA mechanics)

Veterans often hear “Forever GI Bill” and assume the entitlement itself became infinite. It did not. Reading the statute carefully matters here.

The 36-month entitlement cap is still in place

Chapter 33 still pays a maximum of 36 months of full-time entitlement (or its part-time equivalent), the equivalent of four academic years of nine months each. Section 107 removed the deadline by which those 36 months had to be used. It did not add additional months. The exception is the STEM Extension, covered below, which creates a separate pool of up to nine additional months under specific conditions. (For the broader entitlement-conversion question, see our delimiting date guide on when a Chapter 30 veteran should consider crossing over to Chapter 33.)

Service-tier percentages still drive the rate

The eligibility tiers (40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 percent) tied to aggregate active service remain intact. The Colmery Act expanded who qualifies for the 100 percent tier (Purple Heart recipients) but did not change the tier table itself.

MHA mechanics rewired, but the principle stayed

Section 109 made one of the most operationally significant changes. Effective August 1, 2018, the Monthly Housing Allowance is calculated based on the ZIP code where the student physically attends the majority of classes, not the school's administrative or main-campus ZIP. For students at branch campuses, satellite locations, or hybrid programs, this can produce noticeably different MHA than they would have received under the previous rule.

The COLA increase used to set MHA also shifted. Beginning in 2018, MHA is indexed using the Department of Defense's Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) at a rate that, for new enrollments after January 1, 2018, equals the BAH Reduced rate (1 percent below standard) until that gap closes through normal annual adjustments. Students who first used Chapter 33 before that date were grandfathered into the previous rate basis. Online-only enrollment continues to draw a fixed 50 percent MHA tied to the nationwide E-5-with-dependents BAH benchmark.

The treatment of MHA for transferred benefits also got more generous. Before Colmery, dependents using transferred entitlement received a partial MHA. Section 108 restored full E-5 with dependents BAH for transferred MHA, removing what practitioners called the “dependent haircut.”

STEM Extension (Edith Nourse Rogers Scholarship)

Section 110 of the Colmery Act created the Edith Nourse Rogers STEM Scholarship, named for the Massachusetts congresswoman who co-sponsored the original 1944 GI Bill. The scholarship is, in practical terms, a finite pool of additional Chapter 33 entitlement for veterans and Fry Scholarship recipients pursuing approved STEM coursework.

How much extra entitlement

An eligible applicant can receive up to nine additional months of Post-9/11 GI Bill entitlement, subject to a statutory dollar cap that the VA publishes and updates each fiscal year. The cap is on benefit value, not strictly on months, so a student in a high-tuition private program may exhaust the cap before reaching nine months. Counselors helping students sequence STEM coursework against their remaining entitlement can pair this against the Chapter 33 mechanics we cover in the Chapter 33 reference.

Who is eligible

• The student must be enrolled in an approved undergraduate STEM degree program (the VA maintains a list of qualifying degrees) or working toward a teaching credential in a covered STEM field.
• The student must have completed at least 60 semester (or 90 quarter) credit hours toward the degree.
• The student must have exhausted (or be on track to exhaust before completion) the full 36 months of original Chapter 33 entitlement.
• Fry Scholarship recipients pursuing the same coursework are eligible on the same terms.

For VASCOs reviewing intake paperwork, the STEM Extension is one of the most underused mechanisms in the Colmery Act. Students approaching the end of their original 36 months in a qualifying STEM program should be flagged for the application well before their last semester. The application opens through VA.gov, not through the school. Awards are made centrally and capped each fiscal year, so early application matters.

Reservist credit changes

The Reserve Educational Assistance Program (Chapter 1607, REAP) was the post-September 11 program that gave reservists and Guard members educational benefits for contingency activations. Congress sunset REAP on November 25, 2015, cutting off a recognition path for service that many Guard members had performed while in long deployments.

The Colmery Act repaired part of that gap in two ways. First, it allowed certain REAP-qualifying active-duty service performed before the program sunset to count toward Chapter 33 eligibility for service members who had not yet established eligibility on another path. Second, it specifically pulled in active duty under 10 U.S.C. 12301(h), the medical-care authority, which had previously been excluded from Chapter 33 eligibility calculations even though service members were unambiguously on active duty during those periods.

For first-time intake meetings with Guard or Reserve students, a clean DD-214 is no longer enough on its own. We now ask for the full set of orders covering any activation periods so we can apply the correct authority code when computing eligibility tiers. The same documentation discipline matters for Chapter 33 verification at the regional level when overseas activations or unusual orders are involved, and dovetails with the region-specific compliance notes in our Regional Guides hub.

Pilot programs introduced

The Colmery Act authorized several pilot programs aimed at expanding the kinds of education and training the Post-9/11 GI Bill can fund. Two are worth knowing cold.

VET TEC (Veteran Employment Through Technology Education Courses)

Section 116 created the VET TEC pilot program, originally a five-year authority that has since been extended. VET TEC funds non-college, high-tech training at approved providers in fields such as software development, data processing, information science, computer programming, and media application. Funded coursework does not consume Chapter 33 entitlement, the program runs on its own appropriation, which is a meaningful planning lever for veterans who want to retain their 36 months for a degree.

High Technology Pilot Program

Section 116 also authorized a parallel high-technology pilot, sometimes administered alongside VET TEC, allowing the VA to enter agreements with employers and non-traditional training organizations for accelerated technology programs that do not fit the usual school-approval model.

Work-study expansion

Section 113 expanded the categories of eligible work-study activity to include outreach activities at military bases, helping veterans transition into education, and additional federal partner sites. For students looking at regional study options, especially those with VA medical center proximity, work-study is often a useful complement to their MHA. The corresponding regulatory follow-on is summarized in our VA regulatory updates breakdown.

Before and after Colmery

The cleanest way to internalize the Colmery Act is to see the side-by-side. The table below shows the rule that applied before August 1, 2017 next to the rule that applies now under Public Law 115-48. For students who fall in transitional periods (separated before 2013, or first enrolled before key effective dates), older rules can still apply in pockets, so when in doubt, verify against the student's Certificate of Eligibility.

Putting it into practice at intake

The Colmery Act's practical effect on a school's certifying workflow is real but bounded. The biggest day-to-day adjustment is the campus-ZIP MHA rule, because it requires a clean answer to the question “where does this student physically attend the majority of classes” on every certification, including students who shift between branch campuses or hybrid sections mid-term.

The second adjustment is documentation. Reservist and Guard students need their full orders set, not just a DD-214, so the right authorities (REAP, 12301(h), Title 32) get coded correctly. Purple Heart recipients with sub-36-month service should be double-checked against the new 100 percent automatic eligibility before any tier is entered. And dependents using transferred entitlement need their MHA verified against the post-Colmery full-rate rule, because legacy spreadsheets sometimes carry the old reduced rate forward.

For students approaching the end of their 36 months in an approved STEM degree, build the STEM Scholarship application into the senior-year checkpoint, alongside graduation audits. The application is a few pages, but it is worth its full weight in additional benefit funding when correctly timed.

And for older veterans who hear the “Forever” nickname and assume their clock has been reset, the honest answer is: not necessarily. The cutoff date does what it does. For pre-2013 separations, the strongest path forward is usually a careful read of the standard delimiting-date exceptions, plus a check on whether a Chapter 33 conversion from another chapter buys them a more workable timeline.