The GI Bill is considered one of the most consequent pieces of legislation to ever come out of Congress. It entitles veterans and beneficiaries to education benefits, which include payments for tuition, books, housing, and other education related expenses. Presently, a Veteran/beneficiary applying for the benefit has two options:
- Fill out Form 22-1990 by hand and send it by mail or deliver in person.
- Submit your application online with the VA.gov benefit claim application.
The current benefit claim application does have the following things that could be improved:
- The Veteran's service information needs to be entered by the Veteran.
- The Veteran/beneficiary is expected to select which GI Bill benefit to use, which assumes the Veteran/beneficiary knows this information.
- The Veteran/beneficiary needs to know the desired school's information and enter it by hand.
- The submitted information is not automatically processed. It is forwarded to Veteran Claims Examiner (VCE), who'll need to retype the information into the Chapter 33 Long Term Solution application for processing.
- Due to the manual nature of a VCE re-entering the data, there is no immediate feedback of status of application. The Veteran/beneficiary will eventually get a letter by the mail.
The purpose of the My Education Benefits application is to replace the existing VA.gov benefit claim application and improve the current benefits claims experience. The new application will allow the Veteran/beneficiary to submit their claim with the following improvements:
- Veteran's service information will be presented onscreen. There will be no need for the Veteran to enter this information.
- The application will show what benefits the Veteran/beneficiary is eligible for, and a recommended selection, based on the Veteran's service information. These recommendations will be made by JRules.
- A searchable list of schools will be available, reducing the Veteran's/beneficiary's input to searching for the school's name and selecting it.
- Immediate feedback on submission. Unless the Veteran/beneficiary has some unusual situation or specialized case, the application will be sent to our automation system and will make an almost immediate decision based on the JRules engine's decision.
- The Veteran/beneficiary will be able to see their Certificate of Eligibility on screen.
With these improvements, the My Education Benefits application will allow Veterans/beneficiaries to submit their education benefit claim with minimum input and quick feedback.
- Technical lead: Cesar Santiago
- Enterprise Architect: Jackeline Nguyen
- Application Architect: Phil Crowder
- Enterprise Architect: Rishiskesh Kollipara
- Tabitha McIntyre
- Audra Ayotte
- Russell Lyons
- Leelah Holmes
- Isabel Herrick
- Miya Furukawa
- Jacob Buller
- Mark Meardon
- Ferzola, Alexander
- Fernando Boza
- Khansa Hammami
- Nathaniel Buck
- Ewas Farhang
- Liam McCormick