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National Guard Tuition Waiver — Tuition and Mandatory Fees, Public Institutions Only

A serving Guard member in good standing who has not already been awarded a bachelor’s degree can have tuition and mandatory institutional fees waived at a state-supported public two-year or four-year institution. Private and out-of-state schools are excluded.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

A serving Guard member in good standing who has not already been awarded a bachelor’s degree can have tuition and mandatory institutional fees waived at a state-supported public two-year or four-year institution. Private and out-of-state schools are excluded.

What it's worth: Tuition and mandatory institutional fees waived at a state-supported public institution

  • The higher education department states the waiver covers tuition for all approved courses AND mandatory institutional fees — a wider scope than most tuition waivers in this corpus.
  • Non-mandatory fees, room and board, textbooks and parking permits remain the member’s own cost.
  • The award is limited to programmes leading to an undergraduate degree up to a bachelor’s degree.
  • A member who already holds a bachelor’s degree is outside the programme.

Who is entitled to it

  • The waiver is claimed by the serving member.
  • Your home is in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: Each semester, before the term begins
  1. 1Apply through the National Guard education office or your commanding officer — the higher education department administers the money but the Guard runs the front door.
  2. 2Re-apply each semester. This is not a one-time award.
  3. 3Complete the federal student aid application and the state financial aid application as well; the waiver sits on top of a financial aid file, not instead of one.
  4. 4Check that your institution is a state-supported public two-year or four-year school. Private and out-of-state institutions are outside the programme entirely.
  5. 5If you are deployed or discharged mid-programme, ask the education office about continuation before you stop enrolling — continuation is administered by rule rather than automatic.
Form
Application through the Guard education office
File with
The National Guard education office, with the higher education department administering the funds
Each term
Claimed per academic term.
Worth knowingMandatory fees being inside the waiver is unusual and worth checking on the bill. Most tuition waivers in this corpus stop at tuition and leave a fee-heavy campus charging hundreds of dollars a term.
CorrectionHolding a bachelor’s degree already closes the door. This is a first-degree programme, so a Guard member returning for a second bachelor’s or a master’s is outside it however good their standing.
Known gapThe credit-hour ceiling, the application deadline and the statutory citation are not on the page read here. Search-level material points to a 120-credit-hour review point and to a code section in the education title; neither was read from a primary source and neither is published here.

Sources

Why only one source type: The higher education department’s own award page states the scope, the eligibility and the institutional limits. The programme rules are published as a PDF on a military host that returned 403, and the legislature host refuses this project’s tools, so neither the rule nor the statute was read.

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.