Veterans

Seattle U Law takes pride in helping its student veterans achieve success in law school. We are here to ensure your benefits are applied correctly. Once your paperwork is received by the law school, you will be set up to use your benefits the entire time you an enrolled students. You don't have to reapply each semester or year.

Certification Process

• We employ a two-step certification process with the VA to ensure your BAH payments come on time each month.
• For fall semester, you will be certified at the beginning of August for credits only.
• For spring semester you will be certified the week following registration for credits only.
• For both semesters the week after you will be certified for tuition and fees.
• This means if you make any changes to your schedule during credit certification and tuition certification you do not need to notify the SCO. If you make any changes to your schedule after add/drop of any term, you MUST notify the SCO.
• For summer term, you must opt-in to have your credits certified. You will receive an e-mail at the end of February/beginning of March explaining the process for summer certification and the amount of VA benefits you have left for the year.

Tuition payments

Because of the two-step certification process, the VA may send you a letter that indicates no tuition and fees have been paid, but before they have been billed. Once tuition and fees have been billed, the VA will send an updated letter explaining how much was paid.

Using your VA benefits

NOTE: If you have served and are now separated, you must also submit a copy of your DD-214

Funding opportunities

Yellow Ribbon Program

• Provides eligible students up to $10,000 of extra funds for tuition and fees; Seattle U provides $5,000, and the VA matches this amount.
• 32 slots are available for JD students only* on a first come, first served basis, but you will be on the list for your entire law school tenure.**
• To be placed on the list, submit your Certificate of Eligibility, DD-214 (if applicable) and your deposit confirming your attendance.

*If you are an LLM or MLS student you can still use your VA education benefits but do not qualify for Yellow Ribbon.
**Unless you exhaust all your benefits, then you are no longer Yellow Ribbon-eligible

Outside Scholarship Opportunities

gograd.org: Provides information about scholarships for veterans, disabled war veterans, and dependents of military veterans

collegescholarships.org: Search for scholarships across the country, not limited to just veteran status 

WashBoard.org: Fill out a detailed profile about academic interests and financial need and the site matches you with scholarships available in Washington state 

Using benefits with loans and scholarships

• The VA requires that all scholarships be taken into account first before applying your education benefits to your tuition bill.
• Loans do not work in the same way; you can receive your loan as a "refund" and it does not have to be applied to your account before the VA benefits will kick in.
• If you are using Chapter 33 Post-9/11 benefits you can use the Excel sheet below to calculate what your tuition costs may be for the term and/or the academic year.

Chapter 33 Tuition Calculator (XLS)

Directions for Calculator (DOC)