Penn is expanding its veteran benefits for all eligible undergraduate military-affiliated students and will pay for any remaining tuition not covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
The Yellow Ribbon program allows private, higher-cost schools to voluntarily enter into an agreement with the United States Department of Veteran Affairs to cover the cost of tuition for eligible veterans and their dependents. Penn — which previously provided $10,000 for each Yellow Ribbon slot — is now offering contributions that amount to the full remaining tuition for the 2024-25 academic year.
The Yellow Ribbon program is a provision of the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, which expanded educational benefits for military veterans who served on active duty after 2001. The VA matches Penn's contributions under the program.
“What that means is that anything that’s not covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill, we’ll cover that between our Yellow Ribbon contribution and the VA,” Penn's Student Registration and Financial Services Associate Director of Veteran and Military Engagement Lynn Manuel said. “Our undergraduate students this year are almost able to attend Penn for free, which is a pretty phenomenal thing.”
According to Manuel, around 165 Penn students are Yellow Ribbon eligible, with around 25 students at the undergraduate level. Students who are veterans or dependents of veterans may receive up to 36 months of benefits based on their length of service. For families with multiple dependents, they may have to divide those months of entitlement for each child.
“It’s really important that whenever the students are using their entitlement at Penn, they are fully covered for those semesters,” Manuel said.
College sophomore Zachary McGrath is currently using the Yellow Ribbon benefits as a dependent of his father, who was a veteran. McGrath's brother was also able to benefit from the Yellow Ribbon program while attending Yale University.
McGrath, who is interested in the pre-law track, said that the unlimited Yellow Ribbon contributions this year allow him to focus on pursuing an education at Penn without having to worry about the financial consequences.
“Before it was fully covered, I was seriously having to consider going to a state school that gives me a full-ride scholarship and then use my college funds for law school,” McGrath said. “After this new change, that’s no longer a concern. It’s making graduate school a lot more accessible for me and other students.”
In addition to the changes for undergraduate students, many graduate schools also increased Yellow Ribbon contributions. The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and School of Social Policy & Practice now offer unlimited Yellow Ribbon slots with unlimited contributions for eligible graduate students.
The Wharton School and Graduate School of Education will also offer unlimited Yellow Ribbon slots, increasing their contributions to $23,000 and $15,000 for each slot, respectively.
Manuel says that her ultimate goals are not only to “have unlimited Yellow Ribbon across the board,” but also to establish a center for veteran military students to connect with each other.
“Us being able to say we offer unlimited Yellow Ribbon slots and contributions, to me, shows how much Penn cares about this community,” Manuel said. “We’re really trying to say that we recognize [veterans] and the services that they’ve provided for this country and that we're grateful, and we want to have them as part of our community.”
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