If you are in the Air Guard, not in AGR status, and want to attend college, you’d better hope your State has a robust tuition assistance program, because there is no money for federal tuition assistance like the Army Guard has.
This issue has been on the to-do list for your association for several years. It was formally attacked in 2019 and 2020 by EANGUS but without permanent resolution.
In 2019, the Air Guard received almost $11 million in Congressional funding for a pilot program (no pun intended) to fund federal tuition assistance for drilling Guard members. The pilot program included 24 wings in 14 states and territories, to include Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Guam, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming. It began on October 1, 2020. The pilot program was to run for three years, with tuition assistance capped at $4,500 annually per airman. But in 2022, the Air Guard Director put a kibosh on the program, citing a shortage in funding and lack of Congressional funding for the program.
Air Force Instruction 36-2670 Chapter 6 (updated on November 9, 2023) clearly lays out the federal tuition assistance program by the Air Force for the Air Force Reserve. The Air Guard is only mentioned in paragraph 6.8.13 stating that the only funds available for the Air Guard are State tuition programs. As many have discovered, not all States are created equal, and State tuition programs vary greatly across America.
Representatives Jeff Jackson (D-NC) and Trent Kelly (R-MS) introduced H.R. 7088, the Air Guard Standardizing Tuition Assistance to Unify the Services (STATUS) Act, a bipartisan bill that would establish a permanent federal tuition assistance (FTA) program for members of the Air National Guard.
The bill would require the Secretary of the Air Force to provide tuition assistance to members of the Air National Guard, in line with the program currently available to the Army National Guard. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and John Hoeven (R-ND) introduced the Senate companion bill, S.3513. The legislative language reads: “The Secretary of the Air Force shall establish a permanent program to pay, under section 2007 of title 10, United States Code, all or a portion of the charges of an educational institution for the tuition or expenses of a member of the Air National Guard who is in compliance with the training requirements under regulations prescribed under section 502(a) of title 32, United States Code.”
Hopefully the Armed Services committees will consider the legislation and possibly roll the provisions into the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act and fund it in the 2024 Defense Appropriations bill. This disparity in federal tuition assistance between the Army and Air Guard will continue to be attacked by your association in this and future sessions of Congress until a permanent funding solution is attained.