Three bills were filed in both the North Carolina house and senate last week to assist veterans with tuition for state schools.
WHQR’s Sara Wood reports the bills aim to alleviate the burden of out-of-state tuition placed on many veterans almost a year ago.
Because of changes to the post 9/11 GI bill last year, and because of North Carolina’s residency requirement of one year to gain in-state tuition, veterans who were stationed at one of the several military bases here but aren’t official residents have had to pay out-of-state tuition.
That difference causes many veterans to leave the state to pursue more affordable education. Representative Garland Pierce, one of the bill’s sponsors, says these veterans have made sacrifices for the country, and the least the state can do is sacrifice a little money for their education.
“Let’s keep these folks here if we can keep them, and they’ll be good, productive citizens of the state of North Carolina they’ll be taxpayers -- many of them have paid taxes. They’ve been a good part of our community. So we need to reward them, that’s just another aspect of it, they’ve been a part of our community. They’re not strangers to us, they’ve been here.”
The bills move to their respective committees and Pierce says the bill with the strongest potential will most likely move toward a hearing.