How to Get Your VA Education Without an Honorable Discharge

By Neal Litherland

When you are discharged from a branch of the armed forces, that discharge will be honorable, general under honorable circumstances, or other than honorable. The type of discharge you receive will affect the types of benefits you can claim as a veteran, like your GI Bill education benefits. However, even if you don't have the highest rank, honorable discharge, there are still options available to you.

Review your discharge and the rules under the educational benefits you want to qualify for. The new GI Bill requires an honorable discharge, so if you don't have one, then you don't qualify. However, there may be academic credits and programs that you do still qualify for with one of the other two discharges, for which you should speak to your student aid counselor at your university.

Fill out the application form for a review of discharge, which you can get online or from your Veterans Services Center. This form allows you to request that your discharge be upgraded on the official record. On it, you list the reasons why you feel an upgrade is deserved based on the unique circumstances surrounding your particular discharge. Submit the form through your Veterans Affairs branch.

Request a personal hearing. If your initial application is denied, it will be during a review by the Discharge Review and Corrections Board where you are not present. Even so, you can still request a personal hearing, where you can make your case for a discharge upgrade in person to the board. These types of hearings have more success, and you will have to fill out additional forms to request the hearing, but it will allow you to make your case face to face, which will help your chances of getting your discharge upgraded to honorable.

Apply for your education benefits once an upgrade is given. When your discharge is upgraded, it is retroactive, meaning that you are now considered to have always had your new status, which will allow you to apply for benefits.

Make sure that you have good justification for asking for an upgrade of your discharge. There's no guarantee that you'll get an upgrade if you can't provide a reason that your discharge status should change.

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