US Veterans Affairs (VA) Benefits 2024-25

Award details

If you are a Veteran, or Veteran’s dependent, who is entitled to VA (Veterans Affairs) Benefits under the GI Bill then you will be able to claim those benefits if you enrol at King’s on a VA approved course.

How Can I Check if a Course is Approved for VA Benefits?

The list of VA approved courses at King’s can be found here by selecting:

• England under “Select Country”
• King’s College London from the list of institutions
• Programs at the top right
• Institution of Higher Learning under "Description"

If the degree that you wish to study is not listed, then King’s can submit a request for approval to the VA if you have submitted an application to the programme. Please contact the Student Funding Office to request this.

Courses that can be approved include Bachelor degrees, residential taught Master’s degree and MPhil and PhD programmes.

The VA will review all new programme approval requests between 90-180 days of receipt, however, during busy periods the review process can take even longer. As a new programme approval process can be lengthy please contact the Student Funding Office giving plenty of time for the programme approval to be submitted. If the request is received close to enrolment and a programme is not approved for VA funding, yet, you would need to ensure you have enough funding potentially from other sources in place until a response is received from the VA in regards to the new programme approval request.

Can I Use My VA Benefits to Study a Distance Learning Course?

Taught distance learning courses at foreign schools cannot be approved for VA Benefits, as explained here.

This means that US students will not be able to use their VA Benefits to study any of our distance learning Master’s degrees.

PhD and MPhil degrees taught by distance-learning can be approved for the use of VA Benefits.

These restrictions are part of US Law governing the use of VA Benefits, and neither King’s College London or the Veteran’s Affairs office are able to offer any flexibility in this matter.

How Will My Tuition Fee Payments be Handled?

In accordance with US law, VA benefits students are able to attend a course for up to 90 days from the date they provide their certificate of entitlement to King's.

Where students are in receipt of VA Benefits to pay for their fees, we will not impose a penalty, or require the beneficiary to borrow additional funds to cover tuition and fees due to late payments from the VA.

At the start of the year, the Student Funding Office will estimate the likely final £GBP contribution the VA will make towards your tuition fees. This estimate will take into account movement in exchange rate, and the VA’s tuition fee cap.

In October, our Credit Control office may contact students in receipt of VA benefits to request payment of any anticipated shortfall. This is to ensure that, where VA contributions are not expected to cover the whole fee, students do not receive a more substantial request for payment at the end of their studies.

Please note that payment for any portion of fees that we do not expect to be covered by your Veterans Affairs tuition fee payments will still be subject to the standard fee payment regulations, and non-payment of fees may lead to penalties and suspension.

The VA will send $USD contributions to tuition fees to King’s, and the funds will be converted to £GBP and credited to your account. We will contact you to let you know you when the $USD contributions to tuition fees is received by King’s.

When the final expected contribution from the VA has been received, our Credit Control team will calculate the total received amount.

Where movement in the exchange rate has resulted in a surplus on your account, you will be contacted with information about how to request a refund of this amount.

Where movement in the exchange rate has resulted in a shortfall, you will be contacted to arrange payment of this amount.

What Other Sources of Funding are Available to Me?

US students may also be eligible for US Federal Student Aid or private US educational loans. GI Bill contributions will not count towards your Cost of Attendance when taking out US Federal Aid.

Other sources of funding, including scholarships and bursaries, can be found in our Funding Database.

Dependents' Education Assistance (Chapter 35)

If you are receiving DEA benefits, King's will need you to provide your certificate of eligibility and social security number. We will then certify your registration in the same way as for GI Bill recipients.

DEA benefits are paid to students directly in the form of a monthly stipend, and students will be responsible for arranging payments of their tuition fees. More information can be found here.

Award value

King’s will report your tuition fees to the VA as a £GBP amount. The VA will then use a fixed exchange rate set in July to calculate the $USD contribution they will make towards your fees, up to a cap of $26,381.37. This cap is subject to the percentage of benefits payable as stated in your Certificate of Eligibility letter.

Due to the exchange rate fluctuations and the fee cap, the actual £GBP contribution received from the VA is unlikely to exactly match your tuition fees.

Please be aware that the VA will not make any additional contributions to tuition fees where there is a shortfall due to the exchange rate.

Eligibility criteria

If you are a Veteran, or Veteran’s dependent, who is entitled to VA (Veterans Affairs) Benefits under the GI Bill then you will be able to claim those benefits if you enrol at King’s on a VA approved course.

Award conditions

When Will You Certify My Enrolment?

King’s will only be able to provide confirmation of your enrolment to the VA once you have enrolled on your programme of study.

The Student Funding Office will provide a separate certification for each period of enrolment:

Term Dates	Start Date	End Date
Period 1	Monday 23rd September 2024	Friday 13th December 2024
Period 2	Monday 6th January 2024	Friday 28th March 2025
Period 3	Monday 28th April 2025	Friday 30th May 2025
Period 4 (PG only)	Monday 2nd June 2025	Monday 22nd September 2025

We request tuition fees in 3 equal instalments for undergraduate students or 4 equal instalments for postgraduate students.

Application process

For information about how to apply for VA education benefits, please see the VA’s website.

Once you have checked that your course is approved for VA Benefits, you’ll need to contact the Student Funding Office and provide a copy of your most up-to-date VA Certificate of Eligibility. This document will confirm the type of benefits you are eligible to receive, the duration of these benefits and the level of support you’ll receive.

Please also provide your Social Security Number, as we will need this when certifying your enrolment with the VA.

Please note that you where you're studying a degree that lasts multiple years, you'll need to contact us prior to each year of study to let us know that you want to use more of your VA benefit entitlement.

Student Fees & Funding - Privacy Notice

Disclaimer

The College has tried to give students an early opportunity to begin their research of student funding. Although every effort has been made to ensure that information provided is both helpful to prospective candidates and accurate at the time of its publication, it is possible that some information may be outdated or superseded before the start of the 2024-25 academic year.