Expanded GI Bill Too Late for Some

But that has not allayed the concerns of some veterans groups and members of Congress, who have been highly critical of the department's handling of the new GI Bill and said the department's recent about-face has made them even more concerned that the benefits will not be available on time.

"This leaves me with very little confidence, because they spent all that time and all that effort saying they couldn't do it," said Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. "And now they can? . . . It better be ready, that's all I can say."

"They've got nine months to make this go live," said Eric Hilleman, deputy director of national legislative services for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "So we want to see them get on the ball. They've known about this since the end of June, and they had the money from that point forward. So now we are anxiously waiting to see how they plan to proceed."

The VA has had a contingency plan ready to process the payments manually in case it couldn't find a contractor to develop a computer program, said Keith Wilson, the department's director of education service.

Initially, the VA told Congress that it would have to hire as many as 800 people to do that, all of whom would no longer be needed once the VA was able to develop a computer system. Wilson said the number of additional employees would be "significantly lower" than 800 but could not say how many the VA planned to hire.

"We're going to do everything in our power to make sure the resources are there to make sure payments are going out," he said. "We have a very high level of confidence that checks will go out in a timely manner, as they do now."

Not all veterans organizations are worried about the VA's ability to deliver the new benefits on time.

The American Legion, which helped craft the original GI Bill, was strongly against the VA turning over "ownership of one of its most important benefits to the lowest bidder," said Peter Gaytan, the group's director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation.

"They've had to turn to their backup plan, and we trust that they can do it," he said.

Webb's office has been working with the VA, a spokeswoman said, and his "chief interest is that the new comprehensive GI Bill is effective on August 1 for all post-9/11 veterans, as called for by law." Webb has also fought to make the new benefits retroactive to Aug. 1, 2008, but has been unsuccessful.

Tim Kaufmann, a 25-year-old student at George Washington University, paid close attention as the bill was being debated this year. When it passed, he was thrilled, because he was already $30,000 in debt from GWU's tuition and living expenses. But then he realized that the new benefits wouldn't go into effect until Aug. 1, 2009, which meant that because he was on track to graduate in December 2009, he'd receive just one semester's worth of the increased payment.

"At least they're doing something proactive for veterans. It's really inconvenient for me and many others who feel not let down, but more like, 'What about me?' " he said. "It sounds selfish, but if it was a year earlier, it would have made my life a lot easier."

He thought about taking a year off college so that his entire senior year would be covered by the new GI Bill but decided against it. As a Marine who served in Iraq's Anbar province in 2005, he became fascinated by Arab culture and decided to learn the language at GWU. Studying Arabic, he said, "is not something you can take a year off from."

David Fernandez didn't even consider applying to his dream school, Georgetown University, because it was prohibitively expensive, he said, even with the current GI Bill. Instead, Fernandez, who is now a 25-year-old medic in the Army Reserve after five years of active duty and two Iraq tours, went to Northern Virginia Community College because it was far less expensive. But with the new GI Bill coming, he plans to transfer to Georgetown in the spring, even though he knows the current GI Bill will cover only a fraction of the cost.

If the new GI Bill is delayed, he'd probably have to go back to community college.

"I was going to bite the bullet" to go to Georgetown in the spring, he said. "But I can't bite the bullet for too much longer."