Getting a College Degree While on Active Duty – Without Paying Out of Pocket

If you’re like most of us, you’ve wanted to attend college and earn a degree. But you don’t have the money to pay out of pocket and don’t want to take out crippling student loans.

If you’re active duty, there’s plenty of help.

And you don’t have to use your GI Bill either. It can be saved for further education after your service is over.

Below, we’ll talk about the resources available to you to help pay for your degree and, in many cases, cover the full cost.

I’ve used these resources myself to complete an associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degree all on the Navy’s dime.

Submit your joint services transcript (JST) to a military-friendly college

One of the first things you should do once you’ve found a school you’d like to attend – and before you begin taking any classes – is submit your JST to the school to have it evaluated for credit.

Your JST lists all of the schools, courses, etc. that you’ve taken while in the military. Along with these schools or courses, you’ll see credit recommendations from the American Council on Education (ACE).

These schools and courses have been evaluated by ACE and have been deemed to be worth whatever number of credits you see listed on the JST. There’s even credit for boot camp and all that good PT you’ve done!

If you’re planning on attending a military-friendly school, most – if not all – of these ACE recommendations will transfer over to your education plan in the form of course credits.

And believe me, they add up quite a bit. When I first submitted my SMART (what is now the JST) to American Military University (AMU) about 10 years ago, I received well over 30 credits from things I had already done in the military.

With the average associate’s degree requiring around 60 credits, that was half of the degree knocked out before I even took a course! Admittedly, most of these were in the form of elective credits, but some were not and overall, they found someway to make them count.

“CLEP” as many things as you can

The College Level Examination Program (CLEP) allows you to “test out” of courses, usually at the lower levels.

The fee is waived for a service member’s first attempt at taking a CLEP examination for a certain subject.

With most of the subjects’ levels hovering around what you learned in high school, it ends up being pretty easy to simply brush up on the subject with a quick book or online tutorial video and then take and pass the exam.

Also, some of the course will give you 1 or 2 semesters worth of credit depending on how well you do. For example, I took the CLEP exam for college algebra and did well enough to earn 6 credits due to my score!

That’s two classes I didn’t have to take!

Some other CLEP exams you can take include topics such as government, history, psychology, economics, literature, composition, humanities, and various language, business, math, and science topics.

Use tuition assistance (TA) to cover base tuition

Each branch of the military offers some sort of tuition assistance to help cover the cost of your education expenses.

The Navy offers TA at a rate of up to $250 per semester hour, $166.67 per quarter hour, or $16.67 per clock hour. The annual cap is 12 semester hours, 18 quarter hours, or 180 clock hours with a lifetime cap of 120, 180, and 1800, respectively.

This was never originally intended to be enough to completely pay for a full degree, but many military-friendly colleges adjusted their tuition to match the TA rate so that there would be no cost to the service member.

When I was attending AMU, courses were set at $250 per credit hour for undergraduate courses with the fee for any books waived for active-duty military.

So, all of my 3-credit classes cost exactly $750 dollars and were completely covered by TA.

Supplement TA with the Federal Pell Grant

The Pell Grant is just that – a grant. Which means it is FREE money! You don’t have to pay it back.

Not everyone will qualify for the grant, but if you do, you could receive well over $6,000 per year to help cover the remaining expenses for your school. Whether you qualify for the full grant, a partial amount, or none at all is based off of need, so your income, dependents, and expenses are taken into account.

Also, the Pell Grant only offers money to pay for undergraduate school, with rare exceptions for select master’s programs.

To apply for the Pell Grant, you’ll need to submit a FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. You’ll also have to apply each year for that year’s grant.

When I was completing my bachelor’s degree, TA was capped at $4,000 per year and the Pell Grant offered just over $5,800, which I was able to receive all of.

That put me at nearly $10,000 of free money each year to pay for a degree! Talk about awesome!

How my college journey worked out

I first started my college journey in 2011.

I submitted what was then called the SMART (now the JST) and received approximately 36 credits recommended by ACE toward my degree program. Most covered the 30 credits of electives needed but some covered science and other topics as well.

After that, I passed the CLEP exam for college algebra and got 6 credits there for math.

This put me at over 40 credits accounted for out of a 60-credit associates degree. I only needed an additional 6 classes or so to actually complete the degree.

When it came to my bachelor’s degree, I used TA and the Pell Grant to pay for the additional 20 courses in needed to complete a degree in international relations. At $750 per course with nearly $10,000 per year in free money, it didn’t take long to knock those courses out on shore duty.

Toward the end of completing my bachelor’s degree, I shifted more toward utilizing as much of the Pell Grant as possible so that I could complete the degree, save that year’s TA and utilize it for the first semester of my master’s program before the fiscal year ran out.

Once it did, my annual cap reset and the second semester I was immediately able to max it out and complete nearly half of the master’s program in only two semesters.

With my master’s program only requiring 36 credits, or 12 classes, it was pretty easy to knock the entire thing out in exactly one year.

A quick disclaimer here, I did end up paying for the last few classes out of pocket because I was in a hurry. But there wouldn’t have been any reason I couldn’t have waited until the fiscal year to reset my available TA and pay for them that way.

Keep at it and you’ll succeed, with little-to-no expenses out of your own pocket

Consistency is key here, and making sure that you don’t skip years and miss out on free tuition money.

Even though my hurriedness led me to justify to myself the need to spend my own money to finish early, there’s really no dire reason to if you’re on active duty.

But at the end of the day, I only spent about $2,000 total of my own money and have a graduate degree to show for it.

But, if you play your cards right, you can go from high school graduate to having a master’s degree all on the Navy’s dime.

Keep at it, play it smart, and you too can reach your educational goals without breaking the bank or going deeply in debt with student loans.

*The opinions expressed in this article are my personal opinions and do not represent those of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or any other military organization.