How to Get an Education for Free

Have you ever wondered: how am I going to pay for college? How will I have time, balancing through a job, family, bills and day to day life? Well, if you are seriously interested about obtaining a college degree, then look no further because this article will tell you about all the free education opportunities that the US Army has to offer.

An Army recruiter will always tell you that you can go to school for free. But they never tell you that while on active duty, you will never have time. There is a broad spectrum of free education opportunities out there that hardly anyone knows about. Here are a few.

Army Reserves and National Guard

While in the Reserves or Guard, you are able to go to school full time. All that is required is that you attend Basic Training and an AIT. AIT is a school that will teach you an Army trade so that you can function in the unit that you are assigned. After completing your training, you will be required to attend a drill once a month and a two week AT (Annual Training) once a year. While on the AT you will be paid full active duty pay and your current employer cannot punish you for being away on military orders. Lawfully they will have to hold your position and wages until you return.

The National Guard is run by the state. Therefore, the education benefits will vary from state to state. An example of this is the Montana National Guard only pays part of your tuition, where as Minnesota pays all of it. So you will want to do some research on what your state would be willing to pay.

Because the Army Reserves are run by the federal government, education policies stay the same no matter where you are at. While in the Reserves, you are a part-time soldier just like in the Guard, but you will have different benefits. Tuition is completely free and there is extra money involved for full time students. Therefore the Army Reserves will actually pay you to get an education.

Green to Gold

The US Army offers a program known as Green to Gold. It is a program that works hand in hand with ROTC at Universities. For instance, if you wanted to attend a certain college to obtain a specific degree, then this program would work well for you. All it requires is a GPA (grade point average) of 2.5 or higher, (see specific college ROTC as they may vary from college to college) that you enlist in the Army, stay physically fit and attend some leadership courses. This program was designed to help bring in more officers, to teach them leadership while in school as well as ensuring that they get the education that they want. While in school you will be collecting a monthly stipend to offset living conditions as well as extra drill pay and will have the title of cadet.