Maximize Your Benefits. Optimize Your Life.

October 1, 2026

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My VR&E counselor told me to drop out of Columbia.

I was already a student there. I'd started on my own using the Post-9/11 GI Bill, I was taking classes, and partway in I applied for VR&E (Chapter 31) to pay for the rest of my undergrad. Columbia's tuition bill was $80,000 a year, which meant my case couldn't be signed off by my counselor alone. It needed what the VA calls a high-cost memo, and that put a second set of eyes on everything.

So I made my case. I explained what Columbia's disability resources did for me. I explained that graduates in the field I was headed for did better coming out of Columbia than out of the state schools nearby.

My counselor's answer was to suggest I leave. Drop out, transfer to a state school in New Jersey, and save the VA the tuition.

Here's what I said back, close to word for word:

That was the end of it. It's hard to argue that the fastest path to a veteran's employment goal is making them start over somewhere else. VR&E covered Columbia, every dollar of it.

I've helped dozens of veterans through VR&E since then, so I built the thing I wish I'd had.

At the time I thought I'd won an argument. Looking back, two things did most of the work, and I had no idea either one mattered.

The first is that I was already there. If I'd applied before I started, my counselor could have said "go to the cheaper school" and there would have been nothing to disrupt. Because I was already taking classes, sending me somewhere else had a real cost, and I could name it.

The second is one that worked against me. I lived in New Jersey and commuted into the city, so the VA assigned me a counselor in New Jersey. That counselor was being asked to sign off on a private school in another state while a list of in-state schools sat right there. It made the whole thing harder than it had to be.

I've since watched that same setup sink other people. A friend of mine lived in one state and was found entitled to VR&E there, with a graduate degree signed off as the goal. Then they got into a high-cost private school (think prestige and brand name) in another state. Their counselor wouldn't even send the request up the chain. The reason, in writing: nothing over $50,000 a year could be signed off because cheaper programs existed, and the high-cost memo was only for cases with no other options.

That isn't what the VA's own manual says, and I'll explain that a little further down.

Anyone who's deployed knows there's the regulation and there's how things actually run. The grooming reg doesn't change when you go downrange. Your commander's standards do, and everybody understands which one you're living under.

VR&E works the same way. There's the written policy, and I'll get to it. Then there's what I've learned going through this with dozens of veterans. None of the four rules below is in a VA manual. They matter just as much.

1. Apply from where the school is. Your counselor gets assigned by the address the VA has on file. A counselor who works near your school, and sees that you live near it, has a much easier time saying yes to it, and backing you up their chain of command if you need a high-cost sign-off, than a counselor three states away looking at a list of cheaper local options.

One catch, from a veteran who tried to fix this after the fact: changing your address may not be enough. They were told that a case being handled virtually stays with the original office unless you ask, in writing, for in-person meetings. I can't confirm that's policy everywhere, so ask which office holds your case before you count on a move.

2. Don't apply early. VR&E is one of the only benefits I know of that can punish you for getting ahead of it. Apply a year before you've picked a school and you've handed someone a year to steer you toward a cheaper one.

3. Start on the GI Bill, then switch. Use the GI Bill for your first semester or two at the school you plan to graduate from. Then apply for VR&E. Now you're already there, and the argument I made is yours to make. Two things to do when you switch:

4. Argue the disability office, not the diploma. Remember the two arguments I made for Columbia? Disability resources, and better outcomes for graduates. Only the first one works anymore. The word coming out of recent high-cost reviews is that "better school," rankings, and what graduates earn don't carry a case. What carries it is specific: what this school's disability office does for your conditions that the cheaper school's can't.

There's a second argument that's just as specific, and my friend had it: the cheaper programs near them didn't teach what their career goal required. The regulation only counts a cheaper school as an alternative if it can deliver the training in your plan. If it can't, say exactly what's missing.

This last one is where the unwritten and the written line up. Before a counselor can pick the cheaper school over yours, the VA's own manual makes them answer four questions in writing. Three of the four are about your needs. One is about job placement, and it's the weakest of the four.

Almost nobody walking into that meeting knows those four questions exist. I didn't.

This is the part that would have changed my friend's first conversation. $50,000 a year is the line where your counselor stops being able to sign alone. That's all it is. The manual says that when a plan runs over it, the counselor "must complete and submit the high program costs memo to the VR&E Officer." The same chapter says program costs "should not restrict the types of services provided to any Veteran."

I want to be straight about what that's worth. My friend cited the manual, documented everything, and asked for a formal review. The review sided with the counselor anyway. Knowing the rules didn't win it for them. What it gave them was the argument on paper and a clock to keep fighting on, and they're still fighting: a second review with new evidence, and a fresh application from the city where the school is.

That same friend got through an evaluation with the manual's citations on a sticky note stuck to the monitor. This is that sticky note, built out.

It's called the VR&E Approval Prep Tool. You put in your rating, where you are in the process, what you want to study, and what it costs. It gives you back:

What this tool won't tell you:

Those parts take a person.

It's free, like everything else here, and it always will be.

This spot used to hold an ad. Now it's where I tell you about something I actually do.

If you're in the hard version of this. Your school sits high on that sign-off ladder, your counselor has already said no once, or your case has gone quiet. That's the work I do one-on-one. Grab a time and I'll tell you whether I can help.

I think the counselor's state against the school's state matters a lot more than anyone at the VA would admit, and right now all I have is my own case and the people I've talked to.

If you've used VR&E, or tried to, hit reply and tell me two things: what state your counselor was in, and what state your school was in. And whether they said yes. I read every one, and if the pattern holds I'll write it up.

Talk soon,
Zak