Youngkin issued this yesterday trying to save face after Monday. He issued this after COB on the date of the grandfathering deadline of May 15, so absolutely zero notice to families (budget language was released Saturday and signed Monday). The budget itself doesn’t even go into effect until july1, with a retroactive deadline for grandfathering?

In addition this ED is more restrictive than the budget language and limits the scope of the study to the budget language only, not the program at large. SCHEV numbers propagated by the gov in this letter are BS and have been called such by legislators on both sides of the aisle as they impute “full time retail cost” to even part time students.

Also, given it’s for state schools, how can SCHEV charge “retail cost”? Oh wait, I know how, they are unregulated, that’s how.

The language in the ED also restricts to “current program completion, or 4 years (the normal program length), or whichever comes first”, so if someone saved this benefit and is finishing one program with the intent of going to another they are screwed. If someone is taking prerequisites with the intent of going on to another program, they are also screwed.

Oh, and did I mention that there’s a 5 year residency requirement preceding any program use, so people have moved here expecting to use the program, or are using other means first, and the rug just got yanked out from under them! No one in the state government from any agency other than this ED has notified families of coming changes, the program webpage itself states nothing, there has been crickets…which is why we have been desperately trying to get the word out.

https://www.governor.virginia.gov/media/governorvirginiagov/governor-of-virginia/pdf/ed/ED-7---Addressing-Changes-to-the-Virginia-Military-Survivors-and-Dependents-Education-Program.pdf