HR 983: Montgomery GI Bill Selected Reserves Tuition Fairness Act of 2025

HR 983 in plain English: This law requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to disapprove educational programs at institutions that charge reservists using Montgomery GI Bill-Selected Reserve benefits more than in-state tuition rates, as long as the student is living in the state where the school is located.

Stated purpose

To require that public colleges and universities charge in-state tuition rates to reservists using Montgomery GI Bill-Selected Reserve education benefits, as long as the student is physically located in that state, regardless of where they officially reside.

Key points

• Bars VA approval of schools that charge out-of-state tuition to Montgomery GI Bill-Selected Reserve benefit users living in the school's state
• Applies the in-state tuition protection regardless of the student's official state of residence
• Affects eligibility of educational institutions for VA-approved programs

Arguments supporters make

• Reservists serve the country and should not pay more for college simply because their military service has moved them away from their official home state.
• This closes a gap that already existed for active-duty veterans under other GI Bill programs, making the benefit system fairer and more consistent across service types.
• Lower tuition costs mean reservists can better use the education benefit they earned, encouraging both recruitment and retention in the reserves.

Arguments opponents make

• States and public universities set their own tuition policies, and a federal mandate to charge in-state rates reduces their ability to manage their own budgets and student classifications.
• Lost out-of-state tuition revenue could place a financial burden on public institutions, potentially affecting services or costs for other students.
• The benefit applies regardless of a student's actual ties to the state, which some argue undermines the original purpose of in-state tuition as a reward for state residency and local tax contributions.

Tradeoffs

Reservists gain access to lower tuition rates, but public colleges absorb the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition they would otherwise have collected, creating a cost shift from individual service members to institutions.

Current status in Congress: Became law.

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