Youngkin issues directive to address changes to military survivors and family education program

By Morgan Sweeney

(The Center Square) — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive directive Thursday to assemble a task force to help address some controversial changes in the state’s latest budget to a decades-old educational assistance program for qualifying military families.

The task force would include veterans, families of service members killed in the line of duty, General Assembly members, and state public colleges and universities, who help fund the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program and approached the General Assembly due to rising program costs.

The program was established in 1996 to make higher education more accessible to spouses and dependents of those killed in military service, missing in action, prisoners of war, or who had sustained service-related injuries that left them 90% or more disabled by waiving tuition and mandatory fees. However, program participation has skyrocketed in recent years after eligibility was broadened, according to Youngkin, to a degree that may be unsustainable.

The just-passed budget narrows eligibility for the waiver component of the program to undergraduate programs, and people domiciled in Virginia, taking advantage of other benefits they might be eligible for and reaching specific academic benchmarks, jilting some military families and resulting in pushback from some lawmakers “on both sides of the aisle,” according to Youngkin.

“I am issuing this executive directive because it is vital that we study this issue and address it in a future budget to avoid any unintended consequences,” Youngkin said in a statement. “It is important that lawmakers review this issue so that we can provide a better path forward.”

The task force is to issue guidance on the changes to the program and make recommendations to the General Assembly on how it might be able to change eligibility language in the future while “balanc[ing] the need for long-term program sustainability with eliminating unreasonable barriers to the VMSDEP waiver or a survivor of dependents’ educational goals.”