Hi everyone, I’m u/willybusmc. I’m an active duty enlisted Marine, and have a bit of info to pass on about what it’s like to take college classes while active duty, the Tuition Assistance process, and other key educational benefits.

First, a little about me and my situation. I’ve been active duty for about 6 years, and I’ve been taking college classes for a little over 2 years now. I’m a 5948, Aviation Radar Technician. It’s a pretty technical maintenance MOS. Lots of long days, field ops and even a few deployments, but through it all I’ve been able to stay relatively focused on school. A vital part of that has been being able to apply my efforts in an intelligent way and take advantage of the benefits offered to me.

To Start, a bit About how College Works- So the way college works is that each degree has a certain amount of credits you need in order to apply for the degree. On top of that, there are specific requirements such as "you must take 15 credits with this school" (so you can’t transfer into a new school, take one class and 'graduate' from that school), and specific class requirements such as "take any 3 English classes", "take any 300-level science class, etc". These all form the basic degree requirements.

In general, an Associates degree requires 60 credits and a Bachelor's degree requires 120 credits. So if you take classes in the Marine Corps, you can very feasibly earn your entire Associates, and be well on your way towards a Bachelors all within one enlistment. Then, when you apply for a school back home, you give them your transcripts from the school you've been attending. The school looks through the transcripts and decides what they will accept and what won't count. For the most part, it’s reasonable to assume that any accredited school will accept credits from any other accredited school, but that's not 100% the case.

But I Enlisted to Avoid College- I know, we all did. But chances are, your long term plan would greatly benefit from attending school. While you’re enlisted, college classes improve your JEPES score, make you more competitive for promotion, make you more attractive on boards, and can actually help you learn valuable skills. If you do one enlistment and get out (perfectly valid path), you’ll likely need to further your education to improve your employability after you EAS. Taking classes while you’re active duty puts you that much closer to that goal. Put in the time now, and before you know it you’ll be living the good life as a civilian, getting paid to go to school and hit on anything that moves. If you stay in our beloved Corps for the long haul, you’ll be able to retire with a Master’s degree, all the while getting awesome FITREPS for being college educated. One other thing to consider is that the GI Bill can be transferred. Maybe you’d prefer to let the Corps buy your degree with TA while active, then transfer your GI Bill to your kids someday.

But I’ve got the GI Bill! Yea, that’s true. And you could always wait to do school until you EAS. The GI Bill will cover tuition and even include a living stipend on top of that. But there’s a lifetime limit to GI Bill benefits. If you get as much school done as possible while you’re active duty, you’ll have that much less sucking your GI Bill dry. If you knock out credits on active duty, paid in full by TA, you'll finish your Bachelor’s faster once you EAS and will have surplus for grad school, trade school, technical certifications, etc. The GI Bill can do all sorts of cool stuff for you, but I’m not using it at the moment and can’t give you much more info on that. Perhaps some vets will sound off in the comments. Bottom line is this: More TA = Less Wasted GI Bill

So What is TA? Tuition Assistance, or TA is a benefit provided by the Marine Corps (and other branches) to help Marines attend college while active duty. It is totally free money, but there are a few stipulations.

What will TA do for me? TA will pay for direct tuition expenses up to the annual and credit hour limit (explained below). TA will not cover books, lab fees, parking fees, or any other random educational costs. TA is paid directly to the school. It will pay for ONE Associate’s Degree, ONE Bachelor’s Degree, ONE Master’s Degree AND ONE career/technical certificate. This means that you can get one of EACH of those things, but only one from each category. Choose a program carefully, because once you graduate with that Associate’s Degree in Interpretive Underwater Basket Weaving, you can’t change your mind and go for a real Associate’s Degree.

Annual TA Limit- TA will fund up to $4,500 per fiscal year (October 1 - September 31). Once you hit the TA cap, you are fully free to continue taking classes, but you'll pay out of pocket for those until the new fiscal year begins. Then the TA cap will reset and you'll have another $4,500.

TA Limit per Credit- TA will pay for up to $250 per credit hour. If your school charges more than that per credit hour, you’ll have to pay the difference. However, there is very little reason to pay more than $250 per credit hour. Most schools that I’ve seen are pretty close to that $250, and I would personally not pay extra to attend an expensive school, especially while active duty.

What’s the Cost? College costs vary greatly from school to school, but in general from what I've seen its around $250 per credit hour. That's how college classes are charged, rather than per class. So if a class will earn you 3 credits, at $250/credit that class costs $750. Remember, that cost will be covered by TA up to the annual and credit hour limit. This can all be completely 100% free for you.

Class Limit- When you first apply for Tuition Assistance (TA), the Marine Corps only allows you to take one single class. Once you pass that class with a good enough grade, you can begin taking two classes at once.

Some Math for Marines- So if TA pays for $4,500 a year and each credit costs $250, that allows you to take 18 credits per year. Most college courses are 3 credits (some are 1 and some are 4, but the majority are 3 in my experience). So that's 6 courses per year in order to max out TA. You can take 2 courses at a time, so basically that's 3 semesters worth of classes that they'll pay for. The way that you end up taking these classes, and how many you can handle at a time depend mostly on your personal drive to succeed. MOS and unit play a large role in how much down time you will have, but in the end if you want to take classes, you can make it happen.

What Happens if you run out? At the rate of 2 classes at a time, with no breaks, I ran out of TA last year around summertime and had to pay for about $1,400 out of pocket. I chose to pay for those classes on my own rather than just wait for the TA cap to reset so that I wouldn't lose my momentum. It's hard to get back started after a break. However, it would be totally reasonable to stop taking classes once you hit the TA limit, wait for the new fiscal year, and never spend a dime on school.

Making the Most of it- In addition to simply maximizing your class load, you can also take College Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests to speed toward your degree. These exams are taken on base at your Education Center, for free. If you score a passing grade, you are granted a pre decided amount of credit, as if you had just completed a full college class. I haven’t used CLEP personally, but have several buddies who have. It’s simple, easy to do, and can make serious dents in those pesky credit requirements.

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)- There are also plenty of other ways to get school money. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a government application that allows you to apply for federal financial aid. You fill out financial questions and such and they determine the maximum amount that you can get, and give that info to your school. Your school then determines how much aid they will actually give you. The Pell Grant is the most common form of FAFSA money. That's an additional up to $6,345 straight into your bank account. It's intended to help with school costs, but it's just cash that they give you. That can easily bridge the TA cap gap and leave you actually earning money to go to school. But FAFSA is based on financial need, expected family contribution, and course load. So taking one class a semester won't get you as much aid money as taking 3.

Edits from the Comments

Online Classes- Everything I've written here applies to fully online classes. You never ever have to step foot in anyone's office or a classroom. Oftentimes, at military-friendly schools, the professors teaching online courses have a great understanding of military life and are very flexible on due dates if you have good reason. Now, I'm not saying that you should abuse this and try to turn everything in late. But if you do end up getting deployed or something, the profs will usually work with you.

But how DO? First, you need to take a TA brief. These are typically in person, at the Education Center but due to COVID, they are being offered virtually, at least around this part of the world. You also have to take a personal financial readiness course either in person or on JKO, and some duty stations require the Higher Education Preparation JKO course, though that is not a definite requirement.

Next, you apply for whatever school you want. Once you get accepted, you can pick your classes and register for them. This is where a lot of people want to talk to a student advisor or counselor or whatever. That's totally understandable, and these guys are a great resource. They'll help you pick a good degree plan and courses. However, if you are more of a people-hater and want to do it solo, you can absolutely take some time and figure out what courses you need, and register for them all on your own. That's what I do, and I've succeeded so far.

you can submit your first TA voucher. There is a TA website that you'll learn all about in the brief. It is ridiculously simple. You just create a new voucher, fill in the information for each class, and select a "command approver" to send it to. I'm not 100% sure who all that can be, but at various times I've used my section SNCOIC (MSGT), OIC (CWO2), and random Lts from my unit's S-3 training.

Once you submit the voucher to the command approver, he or she will be notified about it. They'll need to sign into the website and approve it. Once they do, it gets automatically forwarded to your Education Center, who ensures that you have all the requirements met, are in good standing, and the class aligns with your degree plan. Then the Education Center approves it, and returns the signed voucher to you.

Next, you have to submit that voucher to your school. For my school, I just use Adobe to add my EDIPI to the top of it, and then email it to the TA office of my school. Within a few days, the school will charge the balance of the classes to Uncle Sam.

Holy Wow, When can I get Started?! There is no Time in Service (TIS) requirement to utilize TA, you just cannot be in MOS school. So at least you'll have to wait till you hit the fleet. Also, you probably should plan for a few months where you focus on learning your job and getting used to the Marine Corps before attempting classes.

So there you have it; a brief(ish) overview on college, taking classes while active duty, TA, and other educational benefits. This is far from a comprehensive resource, but if you have any questions feel free to ask. I’d be more than happy to help you out. As you can see, there are so many ways to make college work while active duty. It is the smart thing to do, even if you only want to pursue a technical career certificate. Remember, you earned these benefits through a lot of personal sacrifice, so take advantage of the free money while you’re active duty, and I guarantee that you’ll be glad you did.