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What If the Illinois Veterans Grant Went Away?

Hi everyone and welcome (or welcome back) to the blog “Soldier to Student”. In this post I want to talk about what would happen if the Illinois Veterans Grant went away. Now I just want to preface this by saying this is all hypothetical and I am only bringing this up because it would be interesting to analyze the impacts it would have. Unfortunately I was unable to find the number of veterans using this grant, which I was going to use to illustrate the number of veterans who would be affected, but regardless of how many it affects I am going to talk about what we would see. First of all, veterans would receive no state funding. The Illinois Veterans Grant pays tuition and mandatory fees at all Illinois state-supported colleges, universities and community colleges for veterans who served a minimum of two years and enlisted from and returned to Illinois. I personally use this grant and losing this money would mean solely relying on federal funding for school. Right now since I am using the IVG in conjunction with the Montgomery GI Bill, going strictly just the Montgomery GI Bill would not be enough to cover school and my living expenses. This would mean I would have to switch to the Post 9-11 GI Bill in order to have enough money to cover all expenses. Another thing we would see is a decline in the number of veterans with masters or graduate degrees. A benefit of the IVG is that you can use it for your undergrad and save your federal funding for your masters, or vice versa. The IVG helps to open more doors for veterans getting their degrees and pursuing higher education. After reviewing what would happen if they got rid of the IVG, I am very happy that it is just a hypothetical. Please let me know what you think in the comments! 

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